Watershed Moments
by ricca
Summary: Eric, an Erudite dependent, witnesses an Abnegation girl stand up to a bully. This is not normal, therefore interesting and worthy of further study. Accidental friendship, science, and Faction politics ensue. Platonic Beatrice/Eric. Pre-movie AU.
1. The Watershed Moment

**A/N: Hello! This series (which is neither quite standalone one-shots nor properly serialized chapters) was born out of the first 2 minutes of the Divergent move, and a more general need for feels after finishing Allegiant.**

 **I realized, at the end of it all, that since there's only a two-year difference between Tris and Eric, they would have been in school at the same time, and wouldn't it be amusing to imagine them growing up in tandem, maybe growing into friends. What can I say – I set sail on all the wrong ships.**

* * *

"What are you doing? Stop it!"

The shout roused Eric from where he had been subsumed in a book, his latest inquisition into the world of biochemistry had been rewarded by the school librarians, and he looked up from illustrations of bacterial cell structures and the different diseases they caused in time to see a tiny girl in ugly Dauntless grey plant herself resolutely between a broad girl in Candor white and a willowy Amity boy in orange. They were little, fourth or fifth years compared to his seventh, and he glared at them before going back to his reading. The small and weak taking out their wrath on the smaller and weaker, it was nothing he hadn't seen a dozen times before and it was always tedious.

"Shut up and go away, mouse" The Candor girl towered over the other children, eyes bright and hard. "Joshua doesn't want your help, you're making him feel bad." She sneered at her target around the skinny grey shoulder.

"You are making him feel bad!" The Abnegation shook her head until yellow pigtails lashed against her cheek. "You are a bully and he didn't do anything to you so leave him alone!"

The girl's voice was high and clear and Eric wasn't sure he had ever heard a Stiff speak like that before. Everyone knew that quietude and modesty were the traits of the governing Faction, this girl was practically yelling.

It didn't faze the Candor girl and she shoved her new opponent much harder, knocking the Abnegation girl over into the boy, prone in terror on the ground. "You're just a stupid little mouse and you are being very rude! No!" She shouted as the girl in grey tried to stand and kicked her in the ankle. "You have to stay in the dirt until I say you can get up or I'll kick you again! That's where you stupid ugly Abnegation mice belong, in the dirt!"

The Abnegation girl whimpered, but steeled her soft face and clambered up again, an illogical move in Eric's book. She was out matched by her opponent, smaller weaker, and undoubtedly less used to cruelty. Getting up would earn her nothing but more pain, so why bother? He was surprised then, when the girl shoved her aggressor in the chest, hard enough for the bigger girl to take a faltering step back.

"You don't get to tell me what to do." She jutted her chin out, and retreated in a gradual curve, guiding the bullying girl away from the boy, scrambling to get his schoolwork back in his bag and exit the scene of the fight.

The Candor girl stopped following and put her hand son her hips to let out a fully-bellied laugh. "You think you did him a favor!" She made a grab for a pigtail and got lucky, dragging her victim close. "I'm gonna hit him twice as hard next time and I'm going to tell him it's all your fault! What do you think of that, mouse?"

The smaller girl hissed as her hair was pulled and they're now too close to Eric for him to have any hope of peace at all. They weren't his faction, he didn't owe them anything, but the big girl was stupid and that was the greatest sin among the Erudite. It was offensive, and the little girl was unusual, different, and therefore as worthy of his interest as a Stiff could hope to be. He marked his page carefully, put the book down, and then he stood up. "Hey, let her go."

"What's it to you?" The Candor turned, dragging her newest victim along for the ride to face Eric directly and size him up with calculating black eyes.

Eric glared at her, hands bunching into fists at his side. "Your stupid voice is annoying. Get lost."

Dark eyes rolled in disgust and the Candor shoves the nameless mousey Stiff in his direction before marching off with her head held high.

She stumbled, catching herself with a fistful of his dark blue blazer as footsteps echoed their approach and a dark haired boy in ugly grey clothes, ran around the corner, red faced and out of breath.

"Beatrice? Beatrice! What have you done?"

The girl dropped the heavy material and edged a step back, eyes cast obediently to the floor. "Caleb, I-"

"I heard you were fighting." The boy, Caleb, bee-lined for the girl, checking her head to toe and shook his head with disappointment. "Beatrice, you know what father says about fighting."

Mutinous eyes flicked up at Eric over the newcomer's shoulder. "It wasn't self-serving-"

"Hush," Caleb struggled with his temper and mastered it. "It's okay. I forgive you for arguing with me. We can just go back to our friends and I'll give you some cheese." He turned and caught sight of Eric, looming large and silent beside them. "I apologize for any disturbance my sister caused you."

He hesitated and Eric guess well enough the choice the boy was struggling with. Abnegation were always supposed to have something to offer, some trivial act of charity that was supposed to demonstrate their humility, their selflessness, their general all around 'better-than-you-ness', but Erudite was considered a rival, dangerous and greedy. "Whatever." Eric sat back down on his bench and re-opened his book, emphatically ignoring the stupid pair of Stiffs. The brother and sister left without a word, and somehow the empty stretch of hallways was less interesting than it had been previously.


	2. The Second Encounter

**A/N: Quick point of clarification on the grading system: it's never made clear in the books (that I recall) so I've modeled the school years according to the American system (six year olds in year one, seven in year two, so on…).**

* * *

Eric found her again in the wild chaos of the cafeteria, sitting in a corner, just one grey back among several others that formed a small knot of respectful quiet. They were eating some boring polite communal lunch, and Eric took a seat a safe distance from them, armed with a textbook and an apple. He flipped the pages, scanning through the tome on biology without actually absorbing anything beyond the superficial. It didn't matter too much, there would be more than enough time to learn the content in the coming weeks as the instructors reviewed it and walked the class through the content together. He was just reading ahead, really. They were so boring, the Stiffs, eating plain food and barely talking to each other. Idly he wondered what would happen if he walked up to them and tapped Beatrice on the shoulder, then discarded the idea. They wouldn't do anything.

Feeling very much put upon, he dug into his satchel for a scrap of paper. The din of hundreds of children left largely unsupervised covered the sound of tearing paper as he ripped it into smaller pieces, rolling them between his fingers into compact projectiles. When he had a respectable supply balanced on his open book, he leaned back and lined up the shot. It flew true to his aim, bouncing off a small pink ear and tumbling out of site. He smirked as her shoulders twitched and she touched a hand to her ear before returning her hands out of sight. He waited a few seconds and then flicked another pellet. This one brushed past her neck, and she slapped her hand down on it, pinching it off her skin and bowing her head over it. Eric stared resolutely at his book, risking a sneaky side glance at her. A boy's head was bent beside her and she shook her head slightly, causing him to retreat. Eric flicked several in quick succession, a steady stream that disappeared over her shoulder. Still, nothing. Frustrated, he flicked the last one with a little more vigor, overshooting his mark and then went back to his book, trying to wrap his head around the fascinating, frustrating stuff that is DNA bases. It wasn't enough to be able to recite the names, there had to be understanding, and that particular element was being elusive.

"I think these are yours." A shadow fell over the page and a small handful of white paper pellets sprinkled on the glossy paper in front of him.

Eric grinned up at the girl in Abnegation grey, Beatrice, standing over him with a politely neutral expression. "Thanks, I knew I had some around here." He swung his legs down off the bench and nodded at her to sit.

Beatrice did so, back straight and eyes lowered. "Why did you throw them at me?"

"The spirit of inquiry," She looked up at him, forehead lined in confusion. "I wanted to see what you would do." Eric clarified with an unapologetic shrug.

"Why?" Beatrice asked again, hands clenched in her lap.

"Why not?" He challenged her back. "You're different from the other Stiffs here, you stood up to that bully."

Her eyes were wide with sudden fear. "Are you going to tell on me?"

"Tell on you?" Eric rolled his eyes in disgust. "What are you, four? Tattling is lame and no one but your Stiff family would care anyway."

"I'm ten," Beatrice tossed her head and ignored the slur. "Way older than four." But the fear pose relaxed and she seemed to settle where she sat on the other side of the bench, head cocked to the side. "You stood up for me. That was different, too."

Eric shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation, and closed his book, trapping the little bits of paper inside. "She was annoying. I didn't do it for you."

"It's okay," She tucked her feet up under the wide grey skirt, "It was still a nice thing to do." She didn't acknowledge the responding change in his body language, either too ignorant or too polite. "What's your name?"

"Eric."

"Beatrice," She gave him a polite nod and then sat there a moment, thinking. "You're the first person from Erudite who's ever wanted to talk to me."

"Don't let it go to your head," Eric smirked at her perplexed expression. "Relax, it was a joke. Your face will freeze if you leave it like that."

"Really?" Beatrice's eyes widened and she smoothed down her expression, patting her cheeks to make sure they were still mobile.

"Of course not," Eric was scornful. "Do you have to take everything so literally?" He paused, reconsidered, and then amended. "Stupid question, of course you do. Come on," Standing, he dusted off his blazer and smoothed the part in his hair before holding his hand out to her. "I want to show you something."

She flicked her gaze between his outstretched palm and the circle of Abnegation children sitting quietly nearby. "I should go back to the study group." She gathered her small stack of books, but her movements lingered and the words sounded hollow.

"What, are you scared?" The taunting had its desired effect. Beatrice drew her brows in a line and grabbed at his hand awkwardly. Eric laughed outright at her, but wrapped his fingers around hers and towed her out of the room, the girl trotting behind to keep up.

"Where are we going?" Beatrice asked after several minutes of brisk walking, still being towed along be Eric.

"You ask a lot of questions for a Stiff." Eric led them through the maze of hallways, abandoned in the communal lunch hour, and steered Beatrice into a classroom identical to dozens of others. He shut the door behind them softly and then crossed the room to a workstation with a glowing blue console screen. Ignoring the chair, he jostled the mouse and hit a few quick commands into the keyboard. A logo of crisp white and blue lines flashed on the screen and then faded away. "Sit." When she didn't move he nudged her into the chair in front of the console controls.

Beatrice boggled at the complex interplay of moving graphics in front of her. "What is it?"

"A game, well, sort of. It's a city simulator." Eric leaned over her shoulder and brushed her hand away to activate the program. "You need to manage the roads and water and sewage to keep your residents happy. It's fun."

Beatrice clicked randomly on the screen, frowning as at first nothing happened and then little red flags began popping up across the screen. "Did I break something?" She yanked her hand away from the controls and knotted her fingers in her lap.

"It's just a game," Eric shook his head at her, pityingly. "It's not a big deal. Here, scoot over." The desk was wide enough to accommodate a second seat and he slid in beside her, dragging the mouse and keyboard in front of him and going through the pattern that yielded the optimal results. "Doesn't your faction have games?"

Beatrice watched the pictures shift in response to Eric's inputs, patterns gradually emerging. "Not really. Sometimes my brother and I play Truth, but that's a Candor game."

"You're not allowed to have fun at all? That sounds awful."

"We have fun!" She sounded vaguely defensive about it. "What other games are there, besides Truth?" Beatrice looked up at Eric.

Eric preened a little at the question. "Erudite has loads of games like these: doctor-sims, resource management sims, even social-interaction ones. Everyone knows the Dauntless play Dare, which I guess is kind of like Truth except doing crazy things instead of answering questions. The Amity…" He trailed off, clicking furiously at a new problem area on his screen. "The Amity play Ball? I don't really know, except that it seems to entail a lot of kicking."

"Kicking each other?" Beatrice frowned. "That doesn't sound very much like Amity."

"No," Eric dragged the syllable out, shaking his head and scrunching his nose. "I don't think so. Hang on," He closed out of the game and opened a new interface, typing for a minute until a grainy image of youth in Amity colors running around after a small white sphere began playing. "See? They're not kicking each other, much," He amended as one of the small figures on the recording definitely did kick one of the other players running after the ball. "I don't know. It doesn't look very interesting."

Beatrice studied the recording, "They look like they're having fun." She settled back in the chair, satisfied with what she's seen. "How do you know so much about the other factions, Eric?"

Eric shrugged and closed down the workstation. "My mother studies them, she's an advisor to the instructors in the city. She says that teaching styles need to be tailored to each faction to optimize educational results, and that involved a very detailed understanding of the conditions in which the dependents are raised. She really gets going on it, too." He rolled his eyes at the recollection. "Anyway, we should get going; bell's in five."

That made sense, and she couldn't be late to her afternoon classes. Beatrice stood, smoothing her skirt and pushing her chair in neatly. "Thank you for showing me this."

"You don't have to thank me," Eric shrugged the politeness off. "Think you can find your way back to the fourth year wing on your own?"

"Yeah." He held the door for her as they left the room with the glowing screens and strange games, and somehow, because he wore blue instead of grey, it felt more meaningful.


	3. Chemistry and Reactions

**A/N: Thanks everyone who took the time to review, follow and favorite this! It means so much to me 3. Quick heads up that, after outlining where I want this to go, I had to go back to the first two stories and scoot their ages up a tiny bit - so as of the current timeline, Tris is 10 and Eric is 12. Small change, probably not worth the note. As always, I love to hear what you think!**

* * *

Eric didn't need to look up from his lab book to navigate from his last class of the day to Junior Lab Number Five. His feet knew the path after treating the same series of turns for the past two years. Next year he'd advance to the advanced labs with their high powered microscopes and crucibles, but he still had a week left with the junior equipment, and a few more assignments to complete in the dull sterile space. He pushed through the door, letting it swing shut behind him and dropped his bag on the empty bench, putting the book down and stretching a crick in his neck. The room was empty except for two anonymous Abnegation girls cleaning last period's glassware, heads bent: normal, boring. He didn't spare them a second glance; he hadn't seen more than a glimpse of Beatrice, in nearly a month now, and had come to resign himself to the fact that something he did had scared her off. It was a small loss and he would be stupid to linger over it like some kind of dumb girl.

His lab partner ran through the door minutes later, once Eric had nearly resigned himself to completing the work on his own. It wouldn't have been the first time, but he could handle it, sometimes almost preferred it. The extra workload was worth it to exercise full control over the task at hand, ensure perfect execution of the instructions outlined in his book and an accurate, and more importantly, legible report to pass in for grading.

The boy, an equal in age and sometimes aptitude, inclined his head in wordless greeting and threw down his things beside Eric's. "Coulter, right? You mind getting the glass?" That was it, no introduction, no apology for being late.

Eric noted the distasteful look the newcomer sent the bent grey-clothed backs camping in front of the hutch where the beakers, gradated cylinders, and test tubes were kept safe and shrugged. "Go get the chemicals from supply. Don't forget to check the concentration." The other boy glared at him in disgust and Eric smirked at the retreating back. It was a fair reminder, but that the other boy had gotten so riled up meant there was a history there, perhaps he had made a similar mistake in the past. If so, he'd need watching, he'd be damned before he let his grade slip over some idiot's careless mistake. Ignorance could be corrected, but laziness and intentional idiocy was anathema.

He brushed past the two Stiff's, silent and industrious, and opened the cabinet where clean supplies sat in neat ranks and gathered the unwieldy double handful of the supplies he needed to complete his assignment.

"Do you need a tray?"

The voice behind him belonged to Beatrice and Eric started, glass clinking dangerously between his fingers. "What are you doing here?" He got ahold of himself and double checked his grip on the delicate materials clenched between his fingers.

"Faction activity," Beatrice flicked her eyes up to his for an instant and then took a freshly cleaned tray from her faction-member's pile. "Here."

Eric settled the glassware on the surface extended towards him, not entirely sure if the girl was being sincere in her subdued assistance or poking fun at him. Of course he knew that the first hour after classes was dedicated to faction-specific activities; was she implying he didn't? He took the tray from her hands and stalked back to his workspace, ears straining for the quiet sounds she made as she returned to her spot beside the other Abnegation girl and resumed scrubbing. He organized the glassware and pipettes, located a burner and unoccupied centrifuge and reread the instructions detailed in his textbook twice before growing irate at his still absent partner. The supply closet wasn't that far away; the stupid boy should have been back by now. He scowled at the two girls, bent over an apparatus with their scrubbing brushes, more from a lack of targets than any specific animosity, and pushed his stool away.

The supply closet for the junior students was close to the lab designated for their use, just around a corner and a few doors down. The door was ajar and Eric scowled at the narrow slice of dimly lit interior before pushing it open all the way. It smelled odd and he edged inside, searching the narrow room for any sign of his lab partner. He found the boy all the way in the back, where the supplies for the most advanced junior students were kept, slumped on the floor. Eric froze, mind running in rapid reversal back to the pages from the lab safety manual that was reviewed at the start of every year. He knelt by the unconscious student, pressing his first two fingers against his neck, looking for a pulse, feeling for breath. They seemed sluggish, or was that just compared to his own heart thundering in his ears? Eric fumbled the limp arms into position and pulled with all his strength. The room spun wildly around him and the other boy barely budged. Not good.

Eric staggered back to the entrance, sticking his head into the hallway and sucking down deep breathes of air. "Help," It came out a croak, weak and pathetic. He tried again, "Help! I need help!" There was silence and then the patter of two pairs of worn Abnegation boots as Beatrice and her friend turned the corner and saw him. He waved, frantic, at them, "In here!"

The two girls trotted over, the unknown one pausing conscientiously to wedge the door all the way open and followed him into the back. Beatrice covered her mouth with the crook of her elbow and coughed. "What's that smell?"

"I don't know. We have to move him." Eric moved around the boy, crouching by his feet. "I'll push, you pull, okay?" He waited until the smaller girls were situated and then they all strained together. The boy slid forward slowly, gaining momentum as they pushed until they emerged in the open hall. Eric wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and as an afterthought, reached back into the closet and flicked a switch that would turn on the ventilation system. "Thanks, uh," he looked in askance at the strange girl who had arrived with Beatrice.

"Susan." She folded her hands by her front and gave a tiny bow of her head.

"Thanks, Susan. Could you go find an instructor?" Beatrice nodded in encouragement and Susan offered her friend a shaky smile and took off at a brisk walk. Eric took a minute to do a quick search of the closet's interior and located an unsealed flask of carbon tetrachloride. His hands shook as he adjusted the rubber seal over the mouth of the flask and swiped a label off the shelf beside it, carrying the delicate paper back into the hall. Beatrice was still there, standing over the unconscious boy and Eric was about to open his mouth to address her, to ask why she had disappeared so completely, when the sound of footsteps heralded the arrival of Susan and a responsible adult.

The instructor was old and prim, Erudite to the core and perfectly unflappable. She took in the unconscious boy bookended by a peer and an Abnegation girl and blinked once. "Mister Coulter, an explanation, if you please."

The frown she fixed on him had Eric feeling like he was back in first year. It was a stupid, illogical feeling, and he did his best it put it behind him. "He's my lab partner, ma'am. I found him in the supply closet and got help pulling him out. There was an open container of this." He passed her the printed label, not quite holding his breath as she reviewed it with a tight frown.

The instructor sniffed and tucked the label into her crisp blue jacket. "Well done, Mister Coulter. Miss Black, I require your assistance in bringing Mister Brown to the nurse's station." She bent with creaking knees and got an arm under the boy's shoulders, and Susan copied her motions on his other side. Together they stood, dragging the boy to his feet and moving slowly back down the hall and out of sight.

"I should get back to work," Beatrice stared at the empty space where her friend had been a minute ago.

Eric sighed and scrubbed his palms over his eyes. He had work to do too, and he doubted that the loss of a lab partner would be viewed as an acceptable excuse by his instructors. He nodded at her and went back into the supply closet, pulling down the materials he required.

"What are you doing?" Beatrice hadn't left when he went back into the supply closet, and was standing at the entrance, eyeing him like he had sprouted a second head. "It's dangerous in there."

"Is not," Eric dug around in a drawer and pulled out two rolls of wire and added them to the assortment of bottles he had collected. "The fumes are dissipating; it's no big deal." He passed her several of the less dangerous liquids and she took them without complaint, waiting for him to emerge fully and shut the closet door behind him before leading the way back to the lab. Eric set his burdens down by the tray of glass and directed her to do the same.

"It sure looked dangerous," Beatrice shook her head at him and went back to her bench of cleaning supplies. She took up Susan's vacant seat, facing the bench where Eric sorted through the solvents and catalysts.

"Only dangerous to the ignorant," Eric began decanting the concentrated acid into the first beaker. "Even you noticed something was wrong as soon as you stepped inside. Known dangers can be mitigated and thus cease to be dangerous."

"Is that an Erudite proverb?" She watched the flask froth as he dropped a curl of copper wire in.

"It's a fact," Eric shook his head and swirled the beaker gently, watching the wire dissolve in the dark brown liquid. "I haven't seen you around much lately." He picked up a pipette and filled it from the dissolved wire/acid mix, dropping it into a test tube.

Beatrice pushed the apparatus to the side and picked up another Erlenmeyer flask half full of white gunk. "Caleb's been gifting me with his attention recently."

"Your brother?" Eric tried to fathom the words and the careful phrasing around the words and then gave up. "Pretend you're in Candor for a minute, okay? What's up with your brother?" He sorted through the bottles he had collected and double checked the strength of the solution before taking a small sample of sodium hydroxide and adding it to his test tube.

The wire brush did nothing against the gunk and Beatrice shifted uncomfortably as she sorted through the implements available to her. "Like a Candor?" She hesitated and for a minute it seemed like she wasn't going to respond at all. Then she blew out a breath and spoke, "He's worried about me spending so much time with an Erudite. He means well; our father doesn't like your faction very much. How do I get this stuff out?"

Eric added some water to the smoking glass tube, checked the temperature of the glass and then crossed over, taking the flask from her hand and rolling it between his palms, touching the crystalized surface of the crusty gunk, rubbing it across his fingers and sniffing. "Add vinegar, let it sit 'til the end." He made the pronouncement and passed it back to her, then went back to his bench to check on his project. He recorded his observations in the space indicated and used tongs to transfer the tube to a slot in the centrifuge. "What, would he rat you out to your dad?"

"Rat me out?" Beatrice puzzled over the idiom and then shook her head, adding a liberal amount of vinegar to the problem in front of her. "It doesn't really work like that in Abnegation. He's doing me a kindness, helping me walk the path of selflessness." The flask began bubbling and frothing and she hurriedly placed it in the sink by her elbow. "Eric! What's it doing?"

He spared a quick glance for the bubbling mess in the sink and the faintly unpleasant smell. "It's just dissolving the calcium carbonate. It's safe." He adjusted the centrifuge's settings and watched it whirr to life, the speed of motion blurring the slots and tubes into a hypnotic pattern. "A kindness? Do you actually mean to imply that you want him to prevent you from trying the games room again? Because that's what you're saying." The centrifuge wound to a stop and he transferred his tube back to the rack and began filtering off the waste materials.

"I want to be a good member of my faction, I don't want to make trouble for anyone." Beatrice lowered her head and mumbled the response to the stack of petri dishes in front of her.

"You didn't actually say no," Eric rinsed the remaining goop with water and dropped in a second bit of wire. "We can be careful; it won't make trouble." She didn't respond and he continued his work, following the simple steps that ended with a few delicate copper flakes clinging to the inside of the tube.

"Why?" She had worked through her pile of dirty glassware in the uncomfortable silence and was now studying the mess in the sink carefully. "Erudite doesn't like Abnegation any more than Abnegation likes Erudite, maybe even less. Why talk to me at all if your friends and parents will hate you for it?"

Eric snorted and sealed his sample, then carried his dirty dishes and lab book over to her station. He stood beside her, studying the stinking contents of the sink, and flipped the tap for water on. "Erudites' don't have friends. Peers, competitors, allies, adversaries, sure. Not friends."

Beatrice watched the water bubble over the edge of the flask, washing away the stinking vinegar and flecks of white gunk. She picked up the cool, slippery glass, swirled the contents as she had seen Eric do at his works station and then dumped it down the drain. The mess washed away effortlessly. "I think that's a little bit sad." She whispered to the water swirling down the drain.

Eric shrugged, "Emotions are illogical; it would be unwise to let oneself be governed by them. Competition makes us clever." He smirked down at her. "There, that's an Erudite proverb for you." He flopped down on the bench beside her, scratching out the write up of his results on the crisp white pages.

It didn't seem funny, she couldn't see anything for him to smile about, but he didn't seem to be going anywhere and there was still Susan's half of the work to be done. "Your parents then? They've got to care, right?"

Eric scratched behind his ear with the end of his pencil, scribbled a few more lines, and then looked up at her. "As long as I get good grades they don't look too closely at what I do."

Beatrice picked apart a slide that held something crusty between two thin strips of glass and scrubbed at the stain with a soft cloth. "Besides, the schedules will change next year anyway. You'll probably be too busy with the advanced classes to bother with a junior girl in the wrong faction."

He hadn't thought on that and drummed his pencil against the counter. "Now you're just making excuses. If you don't want to bother, just say so."

"Oh, no!" Beatrice looked shocked at the accusation. "I would very much like to bother, if it's not too much to ask."

Eric bent over his book, scribbling at his assignment so she wouldn't see his grin. "We'll make it work, then."


	4. The Apples at Amity Farms

**A/N: Thanks everyone who took the time to review and provide feedback on the story thus far! I am pretty terrible at responding to reviewers, but I'm trying to get better and it really means the world to me that you take the time to do so. Also, this is unabashedly my favorite one so far, and there's definitely a part of me that wants to end this with Eric and Tris running off to Amity and finally getting some sort of happiness. That won't happen, but wouldn't it be ridiculously cute if it did?**

* * *

Summer passed in a blur of tutors and extra-curricular lessons for Eric. He had passed that invisible threshold from junior dependent to advanced and his parents committed fully to giving him every possible intellectual advantage when the academic year started, whether he wanted it or not, it seemed. The net result was that his first day back was far less interesting than it might have otherwise been. Eric already had the year's curriculum drilled into his head ad nauseum so it was simply a matter of learning to optimize his route between classes and learn the names of the instructors who would be facilitating his education for the next nine months.

The announcement at the end of the day, that the first field trip of the year would be to Amity was the most interesting thing to happen that day, even if the trip itself would probably be a letdown – how interesting could farming possibly be? He erred in expressing this sentiment out loud and within range of the instructor's hearing.

"Amity and Erudite have a long, rich history of collaboration for the benefit of the entire city." The grey haired elder smacked a ruler on the top of Eric's desk for emphasis and the boy bit back a flinch. "Together, we have pioneered new techniques in agricultural technology, tripled grain yields through genetic engineering and build indoor hydroponics facilities that can sustain our city through any drought." He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "I would have thought your instructors in Faction History would have impressed upon you the great import of our alliance with the faction of friendship, or have you simply forgotten?"

"I didn't say I didn't understand," Eric glared up at the instructor and forced the words out between clenched teeth, "I said it sounded boring."

The instructor stopped tapping the ruler against his palm and shook his head sadly. "Then that is your loss, young man. There exists a fallacy that Erudite's strength lies in its accumulation of knowledge; that you are of our faction if you are a tireless consumer of trivia. This is untrue and you all," he turned to address the rapt class watching the castigation, "would do well to note it as such. Information is not knowledge and cannot be the ultimate goal you pursue in Erudite; this route leads only to stagnation. Rather, information must serve the pursuit of new knowledge, and discovery, and the curiosity that drives it, cannot be learned from books." He turned back to Eric, "Mister Coulter, I will not assign penalty homework your first day back, but I urge you to reflect on this lesson and do your utmost to maximize your experience during tomorrow's field trip. Class is dismissed."

Eric shoved out of his seat a before the dismissal was completed, walking as quickly as he could without full out running away from the scene of his humiliation. It was weak, poor thanks to the instructor and exposed vulnerability to his peers, but he just didn't care. He ignored the crowds of children milling about, grabbing the first in a line of sleek transport vehicles sent to ferry Erudite dependents back to their parents' residences and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

One similar such vehicle dropped him back off at the rendezvous point the following morning. Other children clustered around the curious mix of well-worn Amity trucks and sharp Dauntless personnel carriers. Going to Amity meant passing through the protective wall corralling Chicago and an armed guard in case whatever was beyond the wall attacked. There hadn't been any attacks at all in his father's living memory, but that didn't change anything; everyone knew that the place beyond the wall was dangerous.

Eric joined the queue of Erudites, Candors, and Abnegation waiting to be loaded into the transports – of course the Amity dependents would meet them at the farms, they lived there after all, and Dauntless dependents did not queue for anything. The Amity truck in front of him filled with the girl immediately in front of him and the cheerful driver nodded down at him. "Sorry, buddy, we're full up. Better go down to the next one." Eric raised a withering eyebrow at the unsolicited term of endearment and led the line to the high military truck parked beside the pickup.

A woman in body armor, sporting hot pink hair and wicked looking snake tattoos smirked down at him and offered her hand. "Cal, we're up!" She hollered back into the darkness behind her and when Eric took her hand, practically lifted him off his feet and nudged him towards the long low benches jutting out along both walls. He took the spot closest to the door and watched the woman repeat the gesture a dozen times until the truck is full, students squeezed shoulder to shoulder. "Alright, we're good!" The engine rumbled to life, sending vibrations through the floor and bench, and they moved out.

The Dauntless woman didn't sit down once during the hour long trip to the checkpoint in the wall. She paced the empty floor of the truck, climbed over the high seat separating the dependents from the front to talk to the driver, hung out the narrow opening in the back of the truck and occasionally disappeared from view entirely to move around the outside, even the roof. Eric couldn't quite keep his mouth shut when she threaded back in through the narrow slit she had slipped out of and thumped lightly on the floor. "Do they really remove the amygdala at the end of Dauntless initiation?"

The woman boggled at him a moment, and then snickered. "Nah, they don't cut your brain; that would be really hardcore."

Eric wasn't half so sure that such a flippant response to lobotomy wasn't some indicator of them having done just that. "Don't you get scared, then?"

The woman, though maybe she was more of a girl, she didn't look that far past her dependency, hummed, grabbing a strap that dangled from the roof as the truck jolted violently over a pot hole. "Maybe the first time," She shrugged, "But then it just becomes another thing, like lacing your shoes in the morning. Maybe you fuck up and it hurts, but then you get better and another chance to do it again." She lowered herself down from the strap, "Don't tell your instructor I said fuck, okay?"

The truck rumbled to a stop and the hatch opened fully, flooding the truck with blinding yellow light. The guards exchanged what probably passed as pleasantries in Dauntless , cursing and rude gestures, and then the door shut again and the truck trundled onwards until stopping one last time. This time when the door rolled open it showed smiling farmers in red and orange rolling a ramp up to the bed of the truck in order to make unloading that much easier.

Eric ignored the helping hands and hopped down, feeling the turf sink under his polished shoes and let the adults herd him away from the loading zone to the mass of students milling about in front of a small grove of old twisty fruit trees, overseen by the sharp and benevolent eyes of the Amity leader, Johanna. When she judged there were no more students coming, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply. Silence fell almost immediately. "Welcome, children, to Amity." She gave the multi-colored throng a smile of motherly affection. "Is has been far too long since we last placed host to the year's first trip and every effort has been made to welcome you into our home today. The common areas of the compound are available for your enjoyment, in addition to our fields and greenhouses. All I ask is that you please respect the private living spaces of our members and ask before opening any closed doors. Members of Amity will be able to answer any questions you may have. Now, go, have fun!" She flicked her hands at them in a quick shooing motion and chaos broke out as Amity and Erudite adults bellowed instructions that were equally ignored by the children eager to escape the confines of supervision and explore the new space on their own. Eric was carried along with the crowd until it thinned enough for him to find his feet and wander off on his own.

He passed many long greenhouses paneled with opaque glass and slipped into one along the line, simply because he wanted to and not because yesterday's lecture still stung. The air inside was warm and moist and greenery flourished in enormous tanks of clear glass. Pale roots floated gently in the green liquid and small fish flashed brightly against the murk. Eric wasn't sure how what purpose the fish served, or how you could grow plants without dirt, much less what the leafy greens actually were, but it was quiet and soothing. Gravel crunched on the other side of the tank, another explorer, and Eric peered through the green depths trying to discern the faint shape on the other side. After a pause the intruder walked on and Eric kept pace as the footsteps led down the line of tanks until they reached one that was slightly smaller, with much clearer water and plants that were so pale they were more yellow than green under the warm lights. He could see, then, through the distortion of the water, the plain grey Abnegation tunic and familiar face. "Beatrice?"

She had to stand on her toes to peer over the edge of the tank at him and Beatrice offered Eric a tiny smile. "Hello, Eric." She touched one of the sprouting plants and pinched a wilting leaf off, letting it flutter between her fingers into the water below. "How are you?"

It's a strange question, not one that he's asked often at home or by his instructors. Eric considered an array of answers and then hedged, "Okay, I guess. You?"

Her eyes crinkled at his awkward adoption of the mannerism. "I am well, thank you."

Silence fell between them and Eric struggled to rekindle the conversation. "Did you have a good summer?" He regretted it almost immediately, what a stupid thing to ask.

Beatrice hummed thoughtfully and shot him an almost subtle look that he couldn't quite decipher. "I did. We spent most of it here in Amity helping in the orchards."

Sweat itched at Eric's shoulders under his blazer and long sleeved shirt. He peeled the heavy outer garment off and folded it neatly over his arm. "They let you out past the wall? You're just a dependent."

"I was with my family," Her small round chin lifted ever so slightly. "Besides, they let Amity babies live here, right?"

Eric had to laugh at that outright, "Did you go native over the summer, Stiff? Are you going to start hugging people now, too?" He didn't give her a chance to respond to his teasing, though her face had gone a novel shade of pink. "It's too hot in here; let's go outside." It was gratifying that, even after a summer of no contact, she went along with the plan wordlessly, keeping pace with him until the row of tanks ended and they went through the heavy glass door together. "So show me around," He nudged her shoulder and she jumped as though scalded.

"Please don't do that."

"Do what, this?" Eric lunged at her and Beatrice evaded, running in a decidedly not Abnegation fashion across a close cropped field dotted with golden hay bales. His legs were longer, but he had spent the summer hunched over a desk instead of laboring outside and he couldn't catch up until they were well across the field and the heavy sweet smell of apples filled the air.

"Don't shove," Beatrice admonished as she stood still and allowed him to approach.

"Okay, okay," Eric ran his fingers through disheveled hair and gave up quickly on trying to flatten it back into place. "No shoving. Is this where you spent the summer?"

Beatrice led the way into the intermittent shade of the grove, threading between low and twisting trunks. "These weren't ripe the last time I was here." She stopped in front of one of the larger trees in the center of the grove, got a good grip on the lower branches and hoisted herself up.

"What are you doing?" The ground was definitely damp and squishy here; Eric placed his blazer on a low branch and tried to follow the worn boots as they ascended into the leafy heights.

"The best ones are at the top." Her voice filtered down with a beam of sunlight and the sound of some slightly more aggressive rustling. "Come on!"

Eric shot the hidden Abnegation girl a very suspicious look and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt to his elbows, testing the rough bark of the tree against his palms. He was not going to be shown up by a little tiny Abnegation junior student, and he pulled himself up after her slowly until his head popped out of the foliage and he could look over the green fields to the distant compound.

Beatrice grinned at him, swaying gently on a slender branch and stretching out with a hand to snag two scarlet fruits from the highest bough. Eric winced as she edged further and further, tiny body hanging out into empty space until she caught the branch with a fingertip and pulled it back in easy reach, tugging the fruits free and retreating to a safer perch close to his side. "Here," She polished the apples on her tunic and passed the larger one down to him.

The thin red skin was warm against his fingers and Eric bit into the fruit with goodwill. It was sweet, sweeter than the fizzy drink Erudite served at special occasions. They were quiet until all that remained was two tiny apple cores. He watched as Beatrice finished nibbling at hers and then let it fall to the ground below, and Eric copied her, wiping his chin on his arm and looking around the view. Away from the compound was another field, this one golden, and beyond it, endless grass with a tiny spec kicking up dust.

"Does Erudite know what's beyond the Dauntless boundary?" Beatrice broke the tranquil quiet, her eyes tracking the distant movement.

Eric looked up at her and gave a tentative half-shrug. "If they do, they're keeping it a pretty big secret."

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know," He shrugged again, "There's not a whole lot to base a reasonable hypothesis on. More grass is probably a safe bet."

"That's so boring," She let out a tiny sigh and looked down, disappointed. "You're probably right."

Eric poked the scrawny leg kicking near his arm and snickered when she nudged him back with her toe. It was funny to see her Abnegation upbringing fight her inherently combative nature, he had missed it. "What's the good of having an awesome Erudite friend if he's not always right?"

Beatrice gave him another look that he didn't quite understand and snaked along the branches, hunting down two more perfect apples. She scrambled down to the branch he perched uncomfortably on and passed him one. "How was your summer?"

Eric buffed the apple on his sleeve until it reflected the sky, wide and blue above them. "Boring," He decided aloud, "I'm glad school's back in session."


	5. Supplementary Educational Opportunities

**A/N: Thank you everyone who reviewed the last chapter! I am glad it was so well received and everyone reading this is fantastic. I'm also happy to announce that I've charted it out and this will carry through the Insurgent plot, which is much farther than I thought it would go, but it's very exciting. I'm excited; you should be too. That said, it weighs the story very heavily on later events, and I'd like to take more time while they're still (relatively) little kids. So, if you have any ideas for little interactions you'd like to see, I'd be grateful if you dropped me a PM or review and they'll be worked in where possible and credit will be given where due, of course.**

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The field trip to Amity aside, Eric felt perfectly justified in his initial assessment about how the school year would unfold. The first month had come and gone in what felt like an eternity of mindless drudgery. He was not even halfway paying attention to the notes scratching across his paper in what was his last class of yet another disgustingly dull day when the instructor's lecturing drone perked up to give an announcement.

"I would like to request that the following students remain after dismissal today: Anderson, Carson, Coulter, Evans, Lindsey, Masters, Stevens and Truman. Your instructors have been notified that you will be missing faction activity this afternoon. The rest of you are dismissed." She waited, short nail tapping against the glossy surface of her desk until the unmentioned pupils had departed. She rubbed a finger against her chin, studying the selected students, before speaking again. "Your instructors have decided that you are not being adequately challenged by your academic studies this year. We acknowledge the limits inherent in designing a curriculum that can accommodate both ends of the bell curve. We have debated the issue at length and agree that, instead of wasting time on lessons that you excel in effortlessly, you will be assigned to a first period independent study for the remainder of the year with our esteemed leader Ms. Matthews. She should be more than up to the task of challenging your growing intellects. Additionally, your afternoon faction activity will be adjusted to serve the community in alignment with your abilities. That is to say, tutoring struggling students in the lower years." The instructor smirked at the unhappy expressions her announcement evoked. "Erudite knowledge is too precious to keep hidden away in secret, children. Our faction depends on you not being merely intelligent, but understanding when and how to communicate that wisdom to the other citizens of Chicago. You begin that practice today. Report to the first level library within fifteen minutes; your new pupils will be assigned upon your arrival."

Eric took his time packing away textbooks and doodle-desecrated notes, mulling over the announcement as his fellow prodigies bustled out past him, doubtless single-minded in their desire to find the junior student assigned to them and impress upon the youth just how very much superior they were. The initial giddiness of being singled out for his exceptionalism was wearing off, an emotional clouding of his rational thought that must be banished. A daily session with his aunt Jeanine was an intriguing concept; she did not come visit his family often, never stayed long, and rarely said much. Mother had always claimed that it was because her sister was very busy with running the Faction and working in her laboratory. No one seemed to know what the Erudite leader was working on, and it would be stupid to assume that this small group session would shed any light on the mystery, but she was so clever, so smart, whatever she had to teach him he would learn and, doubtless, excel at.

It struck him as odd, in the moments it took to cross from the back of the classroom where he had been lurking, that someone as important as Jeanine Matthews would lower herself to instructing a class of eight year children on a daily basis. A genius like her surely had better, more important things to do than dedicate an hour of every day to something that could easily be delegated to an underling, or any competent adult, really. His curiosity drew him up short by the instructor's desk where she was marking up scrawled assignments with a red pen. "Why not just transfer the smart kids to a more advanced class?"

Bright eyes glanced up at him from behind small square glasses, "What led you to that conclusion, Eric?"

"One interesting period first thing in the morning isn't going to suddenly make all the other boring classes more interesting. I don't think I'm the only one coasting in all the classes. If the intent is to challenge students, to push us to excel, shouldn't it be across all disciplines? I know it's unrealistic to receive specialized attention for the entire day, but there are already instructors teaching that material to the upper level students. We could just transfer there and save everyone the trouble." She gazed up at him evenly, not blinking, waiting, so he stumbled on. "Besides, Eighth year can't be the only one with above-average students; there's loads of more advanced stuff we could learn before needing personal instruction sessions with an adult. Ms. Matthews has to have more important things to do than teach a couple kids, right? Is she really going to spend an hour with the 99th percentile for every year?"

The instructor returned to her grading, pen nib scratching against the paper. "It's kind of you to be so worried about how Ms. Matthews spends her time." She observed in a very neutral voice, "You should be relieved to know she is more than up to the task of managing her own schedule, and the instructors are more than happy to accommodate her requests where we can. Now, attend," She rapped her pen on the desk in front of where he stood. "In your hypothetical scenario, what would happen the following year?"

Eric wasn't sure where she was going with this, "We would advance with our new peers."

"And when you are in what should be your final year of education before the Choosing Ceremony and you are ineligible for advancement due to their age?"

"Independent study with a qualified grown up in their field of concentration." Eric shrugged, that much seemed obvious. "Even though it would require additional effort from the grownups at that point, you would have reduced the time commitment to a single year and the student would be able to participate in a meaningful way to our faction."

The instructor chuckled, "Grownups! How precocious of you to concern yourself over faction management at such a young age. Completely wrong, of course, we could never allow dependents who had not fully committed to Erudite to grow so close to the inner workings of the laboratories, no matter how clever they may be." She narrowed her eyes at him, voice falling from soft and amused to cold. "Such a scheme would severely compromise the well-being of the younger and older students; you are not psychologically or sociologically prepared to compete with students in the next year, student, nor could we risk having younger students distract or impede the learning of their elders. Run along to your tutoring now."

Eric's feet followed the dismissal automatically while his wonderful clever brain just kind of stumbled around uselessly trying to find the words to show his teacher just how very wrong she was. It failed him, he had nothing clever to say, he was weak and stupid and she was strong and smart and he would have to work harder to prove his genius again. Moreover, he knew his suggestion was good and right, that he was more than equal to the ninth years above him, that there was nothing about him that was inferior. The rage at being insulted, dismissed as just another stupid little boy, burned under his skin, and though he understood the biochemistry behind the feeling, the urge to hit something was all-consuming. But he was at the library doors and he had to go in now, so he mastered his face, muscles obedient to his mind, and he strolled into the large room of books imperiously.

The librarian clicked her tongue at his tardiness and pointed at only desk occupied by a single student, a blond Abnegation girl hunched over a textbook. He approached, he had come this far, and if he had wanted to skive off, he had missed the chance completely by now.

Beatrice looked up at him, blinked once, and then went back to staring vacantly at the words on the page in front of her. "Hello, Eric."

Eric wasn't sure if what he felt was disappointment that the girl he had tentatively befriended wasn't so smart after all or pleased for the excuse to spend more time with her. "Let's go somewhere else, it's too distracting here." He scowled at the oblivious other students murmuring quietly to each other at the nearby tables. The bent blonde head nodded and she gathered her things, worn by the hands of an untold number of older Abnegation students, and followed him through the stacks. He liked it back here, even with the fine layer of dust that settled over the books it was quiet, gave him room to think and the window in the back gave enough natural light and fresh air to be stimulating without distracting.

The legs of the hard wooden chair scraped against the floor and Eric cast himself down from Beatrice, his apparent pupil. "I didn't think Stiffs usually went for the after school tutoring; isn't it considered too selfish?"

Beatrice grimaced, so quickly that Eric thought he might have imagined it, and shook her head. "It's worse to take others away from Abnegation faction activities. It's not selfish to work with Erudite students in their official designation." Her lip twisted as she stared at the tabletop between them.

"Huh," It was obvious that there was stuff she wasn't telling him, and the secrecy annoyed Eric. Whatever, he would ferret it out, they had time. "So what did you need help with?"

Beatrice was quiet a moment and then accepted the rapid change in topic, sliding her textbook across to him. "Grammar," She cast a dark look at the pages he flipped past, "It doesn't make any sense."

"It's English," Eric muttered, skimming through the dog-eared pages of sample sentence structures and worksheets, "You manage to speak it every day; just follow the rules." It had been a few years since had taken the class himself but he certainly could do the work, so teaching it couldn't be that hard.

"That's what Caleb says," Beatrice wrinkled her nose, "But it's very confusing."

"Your brother?" Eric could vaguely recall a dark haired boy who might have been who she was referring to, but she had never brought him up before and it seemed like an odd time to do so. "He can't help you with this?"

Beatrice gave him a condescending look, "I told you; if he's helping me then he's not putting together care packages for the Factionless or scrubbing down the locker room."

"Lucky him," Eric shook his head and pulled a pencil out of his bag, tapping it on the book between them to return her attention to the subject at hand.

It turned out that teaching was hard, way harder in fact than the original learning had been. They struggled together for hours until Eric was nearly horizontal, tipped back in his chair with his eyes closed; the examples burned into his vision through sheer repetition while Beatrice sat across from him, perfectly straight and flushed scarlet with frustration as she scribbled over another infuriating error.

Eric cracked an eye open at the sound of pencil lead snapping again, took in the unhappy color of the girl across from him, checked his watch and let the chair legs thunk against the rough floorboards as he sat forward. "Look, you don't have to master all of it tonight. We'll go again on Monday."

Beatrice didn't look up from where she was very carefully trying to correct the mistakes of her most current problem. "You'd keep going until you got it right."

"Well, yeah," Eric paused, considering, "But I wouldn't miss the last transport of the day for it, either. Work on it over the weekend, if you like, just be neat and take it slow." He stood from the table, stretching and twisting his back to loosen muscles that had gotten cramped and sore from the prolonged inactivity. "Come on, if we run maybe I won't have to walk home."

"Run?" Beatrice looked both scandalized and delighted. "In school? It's against the rules."

"So is being here after hours. Come on!" He fidgeted as she gathered up the heaping pile of papers and fit them carefully into her bag.

"You don't have to wait for me." She had noticed him impatience as she struggled to fit everything into her small satchel. "I don't want you to miss your ride."

"Don't be stupid just go faster!" He teased and she gave up on fitting everything in, cradling the book in front of her chest as Eric herded her out of the half-dark library and the empty corridors leading out to the abandoned school yard. Dusk was setting in and few had lingered this late on a Friday afternoon, but the rickety Abnegation bus was just pulling into the stop when they burst out the doors and Beatrice waved over her shoulder as she trotted to the rust and grey vehicle. All in all, it hadn't been that bad, and he could work with Mother over the weekend to strategize on how to improve his teaching.


	6. Conflict and Fallacy

**A/N: Thanks so much for all the reviews! I had some very engaging discussion with a few of you that were a real delight, the world Veronica Roth gave us is so unexplored, it's such a pleasure to flush out the details. A few minor changes were made to the previous chapter last Monday night, so if you read it before then, you may want to go back and refresh. I struggled a lot with this chapter, so I'm anxious (as always) for feedback. Writing emotional conflict is hard. We'll get back to the ridiculous fluff soon though.  
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Monday afternoon, Eric caught up with Beatrice at the bottom of the stairs as he was heading towards the lower library for their second tutoring session. His enthusiasm had amused his mother and in turn she had been generous with her knowledge in helping him customize a lesson plan for his pupil, resulting in what he considered to be a highly productive weekend and he was very impressed with himself. "Hey Beatrice," He tapped her on the shoulder, "Did you make any progress with that worksheet over the weekend?"

Beatrice glanced up at being addressed directly and cast a quick look around at the other children hustling past on their way to their faction activities. She shrugged in response and walked a bit faster, turning off the main traffic artery and taking the quieter, longer route to towards the library. Eric followed, annoyance bubbling up at the lack of response, at her unwillingness to walk alongside him. He stretched his legs to keep up, and reconsidered; she was barely walking at all, with her short lets it was more like running, and though she was going in the general direction of their usual meeting place, her body language was all wrong for that. She looked frightened, he decided, with her shoulders hunched up and the quick furtive glances she kept throwing over her shoulder made it look like she was running away from something.

"Beatrice, stop!" The words came from behind him; high, clear and enunciated with firm authority.

It stopped Beatrice in her tracks and she rotated slowly back towards her pursuers, looking at someone past Eric's shoulder. "Caleb." She bowed her head and stared at the worn toes of her boots. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at faction activity."

Eric turned and watched the other boy approach. He was taller than his sister, with dark hair and quiet, unassuming confidence that marked him as clearly as his loose grey shirt and pants. "So are you." The boy, Caleb, pointed out soft and mild, though the look he shot Eric was cool, evaluating.

"I'm going there now," Beatrice jerked her head ever so slightly in Eric's direction. "I told you, I'm being tutored in English."

"And Father said he would switch you out," Caleb stated. "They're a bad influence on you, Beatrice."

Beatrice raised her eyes and frowned at her brother, "I can't fail this class, Caleb!"

"Then I'll help you," Caleb soothed and extended his hand, stepping towards her like he was approaching a stray animal.

"Like you did over the weekend?" Beatrice hissed and retreated back for every step he took towards her. "Eric, go to the library. I'll meet you there."

Eric frowned at the exchange and did not comply with the order. This whole situation was strange, uncomfortable rather than novel. He turned towards her, keeping Caleb in his line of sight and blocking the younger boy's advance. "You should come with me, we're tardy." He tried to pitch his voice the way the other adults did when they were trying to manipulate the younger dependents into doing something. He really didn't want the mark against his attendance record, but something kept his shoes rooted to the dingy carpet. He couldn't, or maybe wouldn't, leave her alone with this.

"It's like you've stopped trying, little sister, it's not like you to go sneaking away or associating with the other factions. I'm worried about you. Father is worried about you. We just want you to be-"

"Be happy?" Beatrice's voice dripped with all the scorn her eleven year old soul carried at the word. "Or be a good little Abnegation girl? Don't you dare say I'm not trying, Caleb Prior, because I am! I'm trying! Really, I am! I made a mistake this weekend, I said I was sorry, you didn't have to go all Candor to Dad on me." Her voice wobbled and she went very, very quiet. "Please go, Caleb, as a gift to me. I'll meet you outside at the bell."

Caleb worked his jaw, glancing between his sister and the bigger Erudite boy, and gave Eric the ugliest look he'd ever seen from a Stiff. Then he turned on his heel and walked off. Eric waited until the sound of footsteps faded to silence and then turned back to Beatrice , still standing with her hands clasped and eyes lowered demurely, but unable to stop the visible shaking of her shoulders. "Hey," Eric had no idea how to properly address this situation, there was nothing in any book, and lecture that had provided instruction on how to respond when a friend was unhappy. "We don't have to go to the library, if you don't want to."

In response she sagged to the ground in the middle of the empty hallway, squatting on her heels and burying her face in her hands. It couldn't muffle the hiccupping sobs that wracked her tiny body. "Sorry, I'm so sorry," She whispered the apology like a prayer, over and over again.

Of course he knew that guilt was illogical, that excessive expressions of it were a common manipulation tactic, but he had seen it used by masters of Erudite manipulation and this was different. "What for?" It felt very peculiar, but he sat, cross legged, across from her and patted her hair gently.

Beatrice cringed away from his hands and shook her head. "I was bad, Eric, I snuck away when I should have been helping the Factionless and spent all that time on your worksheets."

Now he really didn't know what to do. Did she think it was his fault that she had been caught and punished? That would not stand, friend or not. What sort of stupid Faction punished a dependent for trying to succeed, anyway? "Did you get in trouble?"

Her shoulders sagged inwards and she dug her nails into the flesh of her cheeks, scratching faint pink lines down her face in abject misery. She peered up at him through her fingers, eyes red and sunken. "A little," She whispered from behind her hands. "But I was so bad, they did it to help me. I should be grateful that they care."

"That's not what you said to your brother."

Beatrice shook her head, "He meant well, he was only doing what he was supposed to." She gasped for breath around her hysterics, "I don't think he knew what was going to happen when he told on me." She cringed and let out a little, helpless moan of misery.

"Beatrice, what happened?" Instinct born of being raised by decent, well-educated parents who understood the importance that human contact played in a dependent's development made him reach out to her, tugging her small clammy hands down from her face and squeezing gently in his.

She squeezed back, huddled over their linked hands, and broke down in fresh sobs. "The leaders said I had to make up the lost time over night. They took away the papers left me there all alone." She whimpered and took a deep breath, stilling herself with visible effort. Withdrawing to the disciplined lines of her faction, she straightened her shoulders, let out one last shudder of misery, and then spoke. "I apologize for my behavior, I did not mean to burden you with it."

Somehow, she hadn't withdrawn her hand from Eric's, and he traced a heavy work callus along her thumb. The texture was strange, hard and rough, not much like skin at all. It was a biological defense mechanism, he had read once in an introduction to human physiology, a response to repeated pressure that protected the more sensitive dermis, capillaries and nerves beneath. Perhaps her behavior, however grating he might find it, was a similar response. He elected to ignore the apology, "Your brother is an asshole for telling on you." The swear was not very Erudite, but saying it made him feel bold.

Beatrice looked absolutely mortified and yanked her hand out of his to slap them both over her ears. When no more profanity was forthcoming, she dragged them down and laced her fingers around her knees, "Don't say that about Caleb."

"Why not?" Sitting on the floor was becoming excessively uncomfortable. Eric scrambled to his feet and stared down at the top of her head. "If he was so good, he wouldn't have gotten you in trouble, or he would have offered to help you in the first place." He paused, and considered something Caleb had said that had struck a nerve. "Why did he say your dad would transfer you to a different faction activity? Abnegation doesn't control what goes on in the schools."

Beatrice scrambled to her feet and stared blandly up at him through her bangs. "It was selfish to ask him to cover for me. I put myself before our responsibility to the factionless and that was wrong. What Caleb did was right, and if I was any good I'd be more like him."

Eric moved toward her, not sure if it was to shake some sense into her or something else, but she flinched away again so he stepped back and put his hands in his pockets. "I don't think I'll ever understand you Stiffs."

"I don't think you will either," She agreed with a touch of melancholy. "But I finished the work like you suggested. During the designated study time." She retrieved her book bag and dug around in it until she produced a handful of grubby papers.

Eric took them, grimaced at the dirt and realized, belatedly, that she had rather neatly dodged his question about her father's interference. "I don't think there's enough time left to go over them together right now. I'll look at them tonight and we can try again tomorrow, okay?" He was loathe to put the gross leafs into his bag where they might contaminate his otherwise pristine books and papers. When she nodded her assent he moved forward, falling into step beside her. "So why did your dad think he could control your faction activity time? Why would he want to? Competence in English is a core Abnegation requirement, isn't it?" The questions tumbled out of him, uncontainable.

Beatrice squirmed uncomfortably under the onslaught and tried to pick the least problematic query to answer first and recited, "Members of Abnegation must be able to communicate clearly and concisely with other Factions. It is selfish to write poorly, to demand that those we speak to strive to comprehend our messages. Clear communication is a gift to members in and outside of our Faction and we must do our upmost to provide."

"Okay, I got it." Eric made a face as he matched his pace to her sedate walk down the steps. "So if it's important, why would your dad want to take you out? Does he think you'll be transferring to a faction that doesn't value mastery of the English language?"

"I'm only eleven, Eric, that's too young to be thinking about Choosing. And of course my parents would want me to stay with them; they love me."

"Then they should be encouraging you to succeed in the core competencies," Eric argued, "Its irrational to want you to remain where you are and deprive you of the tools to do so."

"Abnegation doesn't work like that," Beatrice shook her head, "It's not that grammar isn't important, it's that my prioritization was incorrect. I should not have picked advancing my academics over helping the Factionless during the weekend visit." She swiped at the drying tear trails with her sleeve, "I wouldn't get kicked out, either! We're not Erudite, no one is told to leave just because they can't perform a particular task. That would be wrong."

He could hear the growing stress in her tone, but this wasn't just something he could leave alone. It was deeply offensive on a level more complex than he could possibly articulate. "More wrong than letting someone inept hold a position of authority? That sounds pretty wrong to me."

"Just because you're in Erudite doesn't mean you know everything!" Beatrice snapped, then paused and took a deep breath. "You don't know what you're talking about, okay? That doesn't happen in Abnegation. If I couldn't write, I'd be put in a position more suited to my abilities."

"Of course I don't know everything! I never said I did!" Eric shouted, grabbing her arm and forcibly turning her so they were face to face. She stared up mulishly, but didn't flinch away. "Don't bring my faction into this."

"Why not?" Beatrice tugged her arm free and clenched her fists at her sides, straining on her toes to match his height. "You brought Abnegation up first."

Eric tried to recall the conversation from moments ago, but the memory was distressingly vague. "Did not!" He grimaced as the words escaped, a retort like that should be below him. This whole argument is beneath him. He could see the words ' _did too'_ forming on her lips and he cut her off before she could do them both the indecency of speaking it aloud. "Look, this argument is stupid. Go find your brother, or whatever. I'll see you tomorrow." He turned and walked off, head held high, heart threatening to erupt through his chest.

"Eric? Eric!" Beatrice shouted at his retreating back, but he didn't stop and she didn't follow.


	7. Learning New Skills

Eric was even more distracted than usual the following day, lessons passing without a single note being taken or hand raised in query. It was far more important that he figure out what this sick apprehension sitting heavy in his stomach was, where it came from, and why he was feeling it, all with the intent of never, ever experiencing it again. He had argued with Beatrice, sure, but this wasn't the first time a debate had gotten a little heated and both parties had needed to step away, calm down, reformulate their arguments, and try again.

Maybe it was because Beatrice was the one involved and she was still new to the idea that calm, rational debate of intelligent minds was the best way to settle minor disagreements? He made a point of not thinking about the way her voice had trembled when he had walked away, forcing the memory down each time it fought its way to the surface. That had nothing to do with anything.

He was getting nowhere with it, thoughts wearing the same unhappy pattern in his brain, so he pushed it all down and away, focusing instead on the simple mechanical motions of eating lunch in the library when the monitor's back was turned and refocusing his attention for the afternoon's classes: physics, chemistry and psychology, adding the assigned homework to his planner at the conclusion of each session. The last bell rang and Eric joined the crowd that carried him down the stairs and deposited him, more or less, in front of the junior's library before he could come to any decisive conclusions about how to best address what happened yesterday. Beatrice had probably forgotten it; it was probably to let it pass unexplained and stop trying to over-analyze every little thing.

He found her by his favorite spot in the stacks again, reordering old books on the rickety shelves that probably even the librarians themselves had forgotten about. Eric dropped his belongings at the table across from hers and when that failed to distract her from her current occupation, wandered over to where she was pulling out a ratty old tome and moving it to the shelf below. He tugged lightly on one of the pigtailed braids hanging down her back. "What are you doing?"

Beatrice shot him a poisonous glance, "What-" She cut herself off, took a deep breath and tried again. "The books are out of order. I thought it would be helpful to the librarians and my fellow students if they were where they out to be."

Eric was temporarily distracted by a long smudge of dust across her nose. "No one else comes back here; the reference materials are years out of date. Also, your nose is dirty." A strange, half-formed thought that he should have just wiped it off himself bubbled up out of nowhere and then dissipated, unrealized. He gave her pigtail another tug, instead.

"Eric! Stop!" Beatrice flailed her arms, unable to decide if cleaning her nose or defending her hair should take priority.

"Shh, don't shout so loud," Eric retreated out of range of her violent movements, smirking as she rubbed her nose and trailed after him to their study space.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," Beatrice mumbled, apropos of nothing as she spread her books and papers out over her half of the table. "I should not have spoken that way."

Clearly he had failed somewhere in his expectations for the younger girl's behavior. "Whatever," Eric shrugged, trying to ward off the memory, "It's no big deal." Beatrice looked rather nonplussed as he pinched the grubby paper she had thrust at him yesterday out of the pile and skimmed it. Last night he had been too distracted, too busy with his other responsibilities to review the work she had done over the weekend, but he could check it over now.

"It seemed like a big deal yesterday," Beatrice persisted, unable to let the issue drop.

Eric glanced up, annoyed. "We had a disagreement, it's not the end of the world." His shoulders tensed until they ached while she mulled it over.

"We raised our voices at each other," Beatrice gave him a reproachful look, "I didn't like it."

"It didn't seem to slow you down," Eric chewed on the end of his pencil, re-reading a particular sentence before drawing a neat circle around it and sliding it back across the table.

Beatrice covered the paper with her hand, standing up and leaning towards him. "You're my best friend, Eric. After you walked away like that, I wasn't sure you'd ever come back."

Eric froze; for all his cleverness and foresight, he hadn't considered such a thing possible; neither the 'best friend' designation nor the 'never coming back'. Under the colloquial use of the word, Beatrice was, strictly speaking, his only friend. There was no one else he'd want to climb trees with, or tease or try to comfort when she was upset; she was probably the only dependent he had met who was worth getting upset over, in fact. He became aware, quite awkwardly, that he hadn't responded and that Beatrice was shrinking back in her seat in the face of the oppressive quiet between them, but what could he say? What would he have done if she had decided to leave and not come back? There was no answer in easy reach. "Don't be stupid," He frowned at her, "And don't apologize. Now, look at the problem I circled and see if you can figure out why it's wrong." She dropped her eyes to the page and pulled it closer, furrowing her brow as she racked her brains for the correct answer. While she struggled with the example, Eric pulled the extra work he had done over the weekend out and flipped through the lesson plan he had drafted. It seemed trivial, almost meaningless now.

"It's a compound sentence," Beatrice shook her head and prodded the circle Eric had drawn hard enough to smudge the graphite. "It was cold outside, pause, Susie put on a sweater. The pause means you use a comma." She illustrated her point by re-drawing the punctuation.

Eric took the paper back and meticulously erased the smudges from her fingers. "It's not that simple. There are a lot of places where you use commas that don't indicate a pause for breath, right?" The skeptical expression on his pupil's face didn't budge and he cast around for an example. "What're your neighbor's names?"

"Susan, Robert, Mary, Daniel, Roger." Beatrice rattled the names off. "Why?"

At the bottom of the page, Eric wrote out in neat cursive _My neighbors are Susan Robert Mary Daniel and Roger ._ "How would you punctuate that?" He challenged her.

Beatrice took the paper back and scowled. "I'm not stupid, you know. There's supposed to be a period at the end." She racked her brain for a minute, "And commas in the list."

Eric nodded, "Right, but when you listed them out to me, did you pause for each one?"

"No." She scrawled the marks on the paper as though they had personally wronged her. "That would be stupid."

"So it's not the only rule for commas. Look back at Susie's sweater for a minute, okay? It is a compound sentence, but you could cut it in half with a period." He tapped the punctuation mark with his eraser. "They're independent clauses, two little sentences that could stand on their own. But if you want to keep them together, you use a semicolon."

"Why not leave them separate, then?" Beatrice leaned over to frown at the small dot he added over her comma.

"Because that's not the point of the exercise." Eric tried not to sound too exasperated. Ignorance was not bad if it could be fixed. "When you're writing your own stuff you can use as many short sentences as you like. When you're studying to learn grammar, you follow the intent of the instructor."

Beatrice wrinkled her nose at him, "That's a silly reason." She observed.

"Hey now, I'm trying to help you," He reached for a pigtail dangling over the paper as she leaned in again, but she jerked away before he could make good on the threat. "Where else do you think you might be able to use a semicolon on this worksheet?"

She rolled her eyes at him, but bent willingly enough back over her studies.


	8. Token Attributes

**SPOILER WARNING IN THE A/N.**

 **A/N: The story** _ **"The Boy Who Found Fear at Last"**_ **is a real fairy tale of Turkish origin, printed as part of the Olive Book of Fairy Tales. The version Beatrice reads would be rather a bit different from the original version (no evil Jew, Leaders instead of kings, etc.). I think there's room for debate about how much pop culture was carried over in the Chicago Experiment, and I can easily see the parables/ fairytales we tell children lingering in the common consciousness, even if they're warped by faction ideology. (I believe this is true for art as well, regardless of what the Divergent wiki says, but that will be explored in a future Moment.) Special credit to Arsinoe de Blassenville who inspired the story-within-a-story found here, and their marvelous retelling of** **"** _ **The Boy Who Found Fear at Last**_ **" in the saga** _ **'Victory at Ostagar'.**_ **I cannot recommend their work highly enough. As always, many thanks to the reviewers! You folks deserve all the good things that happen to you.**

* * *

Fall came, wet and cold with wind that tossed garbage around the streets and whistled through the narrow gaps in window frames and through all but the warmest winter coats. It forced Eric and Beatrice to abandon their regular spot in the stacks in favor of a bench just outside the Junior library entrance, along an internal wall that was better insulated and significantly warmer. Under his careful, impatient tutelage, she was managing to catch up on her studies, the one-on-one instruction helpful, if occasionally distracting.

This time, Eric got there first and he slumped on the bench, tired and aching, too resigned to his misery to put forth the effort to pull out a book or review the materials they needed to cover for her upcoming test. Time passed and it eventually occurred to his sluggish brain that Beatrice really should have been here by now; Abnegation were never tardy. The room spun as he dragged to his feet and trudged up to the desk attendant. "I'm looking for Beatrice Prior."

The librarian eyed him and edged back in her chair but Eric just stood there, staring mindlessly until she checked the list of absences. "Miss Prior was excused from her Activity period today." She shook her head, "Out sick, probably, poor thing. This weather's doing a number on everyone's health."

Eric wanted to correct her, to explain to this humorously incorrect adult that she was wrong, that illness did not work that way but it was just too much effort to make the utterances come out in a comprehensible manner. Instead he swayed on his feet.

"Mr. Coulter?" The adult knit her brow and looked at him with concern. "Maybe you should sit down; you don't look well."

It sounded like a sound idea to Eric and while some distant part of his brain insisted she didn't mean for him to sit right here in front of her desk, surely a chair would be better for his purposes, his legs chose that moment to overrule his mind and buckled, forcing him to sit, quite hard on the floor. His vision swam and then there was nothing.

He awoke briefly as the world swooped around him, drawing his internal organs to the vicinity of his mouth as indistinct figures in white and blue crowded around, but he passed out again before his body could make good on the nausea. He was roused again when a needle stung his arm, as he was wrapped in cold crisp sheets, as people came and went, but never fully breached into the realm of consciousness.

He felt different the next time he woke, weak and tired, in surroundings he didn't recognize immediately. It was blinding white: walls, counter tops, sheets all the same featureless shade with a powerful smell of chemical cleaning agents. He blinked and a few empty beds resolved against the equally white walls across from him. A hospital ward, which meant Erudite, but didn't exactly explain how he had gotten here, or why.

A door, white in a honey-brown frame swung inwards, heralding the arrival of an Erudite nurse. He wore the white and blue uniform of his profession and smiled as whitely as the surrounding décor. "Eric Coulter? It's good to see you're awake." The nurse moved around the room, checking the glowing displays hanging beside the bed and feeling Eric's wrist for a pulse. "How are you feeling?"

Eric blinked again, fighting the lethargy that left him weak and struggling to respond. "What happened?" His voice came out an ugly raps, unfamiliar and rough, and he flinched from the discomfort of talking.

"Here," The nurse was back in a flash with a plastic cup of water and a strong to help Eric sit up. "You took a nasty bout of influenza; it's been working its way around the dependents, but we think the worst is past now." He held the boy up until the glass was empty and then eased him back onto the pillow. "Rest up and you should be back on your feet in a few days." Humming quietly, he completed his checks and headed towards the door.

"Wait!" Eric called after him. "How long have I been here?"

The nurse glanced at the chart displayed on the foot of the bed. "Just over a week, but don't worry about a thing, okay? It'll be all right."

Eric gave that platitude the attention it deserved and struggled up on his elbows, "Have my parents been by? Doctor and Mrs. Coulter?"

The nurse hesitated, "I don't know, kid. I'm sure one of the staffers will let them know now that you're awake." The door clicked shut and Eric was left alone with the quiet hum of electronics and his thoughts. Surely his parents had been by to see him; surely they would come by now that he was awake and ready to be discharged.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but woke groggy and disoriented at a polite knock at the door. He missed the words, and grumbled back at the unseen knocker as he struggled to sit up again. The door opened and Beatrice and Caleb, their Abnegation grey hidden under white and blue striped aprons entered, pushing a cart loaded with plastic containers. The left the cart by the foot of the bed and moved in tandem around the room, wiping down the surfaces with antiseptic wipes. Following the activity was overwhelming, so Eric fell back against the squashed pillow and closed his eyes, listening to the tap of worn boots against the tiled floor. "What're you doing here?"

Caleb's voice floated back, quiet and polite. "The hospital staff is struggling to cope with the influx of patients. They sent Abnegation a formal request for assistance. Do you need to get up?"

The voice was suddenly a lot closer and Eric cracked an eyelid to look up at the cropped dark hair and blue eyes hovering over him. Caleb made a discreet gesture towards the bathroom, hidden from his sister's view. "Uh, yeah." He bumbled through the words, feeling thick and incompetent and immensely frustrated. The younger boy helped him sit up and didn't comment when Eric swatted him away. "I'm not a helpless baby." He groused and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, letting them dangle against the ground. He was an advanced level student and didn't need any junior-level Stiffs to help him go to the bathroom. Certainly not the one that had been so vocal against his tutoring Beatrice so recently.

Only his cautious grip on the bedframe saved him from a humiliating fall when his legs couldn't quite manage to support his weight and the other boy was at his side, quick and uncommenting, offering a supporting arm and ignoring the manful struggle Eric undertook to cross the ten steps to the bathroom. He had the sense to wait outside until Eric re-emerged and helped him back to the bed as Beatrice finished changing the linens. She gave the pillow a final thump as he crawled back under the fresh sheets, exhausted from the brief venture.

"You look tired, we'll come back and sit with you later." Beatrice gave him a tiny smile of encouragement. "Get some rest, okay?"

Caleb took one of the covered trays from the cart and balanced it on the side table, within easy reach and nodded sagely. "Get well soon." Eric was asleep again before they wheeled the cart out of the room.

He woke again at another knock, and managed an acceptable, "Come in" this time.

Beatrice slipped in, alone, and eased the door shut behind her. She moved to the side of the bed and pulled a chair up beside him.

"Where's your brother?"

"Visiting our neighbors in the ward. Would you like some company?"

Eric shifted, it was easier this time to pull himself upright, and he basked in the small victory, "Sure." He cast around for a topic of discussion as she settled into the chair. "You missed our last lesson, were you sick too?"

"I was here. Father heard from the leaders that the outbreak was going to be bad this year. He sent us over to help the doctors prepare." She stifled a yawn behind her hand. "A bunch of instructors got sick too; they closed the schools until the infection runs its course."

That made sense to Eric, if the infection couldn't be controlled then it made sense to keep large gatherings to a minimum until the contagion was over. "Did anyone say when they would re-open?"

"Not that I heard," Beatrice leaned over to peek under the covered tray left by his bed during her earlier visit. "You didn't eat anything."

Eric eyed the plain plastic tray dubiously. "It'll be cold now." He had heard rumors about the quality of hospital food and had no desire to confirm its accuracy for himself.

"There are Factionless children who would be glad of," She pulled the lid off and prodded the sad soggy items beneath with the spoon provided. "Well, maybe not, but the doctors say you recover faster when properly nourished." She maneuvered the table out closer to Eric by way of encouragement.

"You seem to know quite a lot about what the doctors are saying," Eric picked up the spoon from where she had balanced it on the edge of the tray and sat up enough to swing the side table out over his knees. He prodded a congealing mass of green and grimaced as it wobbled. "Aren't you worried about getting sick?"

"I like to listen when the grown-ups talk. You learn all the interesting things that way, like I think those are supposed to be peas in a cream sauce," Beatrice tapped a section holding a smooth white-ish mash. "Maybe the potatoes will be better." She didn't sound very confident in the suggestion. "And Abnegation, remember?" She plucked at the scratchy grey fabric of her sleeve. "Some of the kids helping got sick, some of the adults did too. So far everyone's been okay. I heard," She placed a little extra emphasis on the word, "That the disease is only really dangerous to the really little kids and the elders."

The potatoes were better than the sticky green mass. "That sucks," Eric observed. "How long are you here for?" He asked as she failed to disguise another yawn.

"Until school starts again."

"That sounds boring," He gave up on the potatoes and didn't even bother with the stewed chicken, opting instead to recline back against his pillow. "So, are you expected to visit with all the sick kids?" She nodded and he managed not to scowl. "What do you talk to them about?"

Beatrice shrugged, "Whatever they like. It's supposed to be helpful, I guess."

It was the first Eric had heard of it, he shrugged right back at her. "Beats sitting here bored to death."

"I could bring you some books, if you like?" She offered, eyeing the way his head tilted back and his eyes sagged shut.

Eric nodded, tired again, hating the inherent weaknesses in his physical system. He dozed in her absence and cracked a heavy eyelid when she returned, a few battered paperbacks wedged under her arm. "Anything good?" Beatrice placed the stack of books on the table so he could read the writing on the spines. "Fiction?" Eric managed enough effort to draw out the word in disgust. "They didn't have anything more interesting?"

"I thought they looked interesting!" Beatrice protested and dared to poke the tip of her tongue out at him. "They're short stories for Dauntless children." She picked the top volume up and leafed past the introduction to the first story. "Look, the first one is called 'The Boy Who Found Fear'."

Eric scoffed, "That doesn't sound very Dauntless! They're not supposed to be scared of anything."

Beatrice shushed him and began to read, "Once upon a time, there lived a woman," She broke off mid-sentence with a tentative look at Eric. "Do you want me to stop? I can try and find you something different."

Eric waved the question away with a lazy flick of his hand. "You started it, got to finish now."

Beatrice let out a little sigh and smiled down at him, moving the tray away and perching on the edge of his mattress, balancing the book on her knees. "A woman lived with her son at the edge of town." Her voice was bright and lively as she recounted the tale of the young Dauntless boy's adventures, dropping rough and low for the male speeches and high and whispery for the spooky parts. "And so the boy accepted his doom and passed his life with fear always beside him. The End." She let the book fall open on her lap. "That was different than how I thought it would be."

Eric nodded, "He was a good member of his Faction until he was made leader, that's when it all fell apart for him. Think of all the adventures he could have had without fear to hold him back."

"There wasn't anyone else who could lead his Faction," Beatrice disagreed, "It would have been selfish for him to leave those people alone, scared or not." She flipped a few pages forward, "Look, there are more stories here, do you want to read one now?"

Eric's refusal was interrupted by a hurried knock on the door and a man, made old by stress, stuck his head in, "Beatrice, is this where you've been hiding? You've spent enough time here, there are others who need your help now."

The book snapped closed and she placed it with its fellows on the table. "Yes Mister Black." She gathered up the refused supper tray and nodded politely at Eric. "Good night, perhaps I'll see you tomorrow?"

"That's kind of up to you, isn't it?" Eric waited until the door closed and the sound of footsteps faded before dragging the drab volume off the table and cracking it open. Dauntless adventures were miles cooler than any of the Erudite parables his literary instructors insisted upon.


	9. Academic Achievement

"Eric! Over here!"

He couldn't see her over the milling body of students, but Eric would know her voice anywhere, even if it wasn't usually pitched to carry over the hubbub. Smaller students scampered out of his way as he pushed through the crowd to the general direction of her voice and found Beatrice tucked in a small area of open space beside the library doors. "Hey," He said by way of greeting, "Why aren't you inside?"

"I didn't think I could be quiet," Beatrice was vibrating with barely contained excitement, bouncing on the balls of her toes and waving a paper clenched in her fist under his nose. "Eric! Look! I got an A!"

Eric grabbed her wrist and tugged the paper free. He smoothed it flat against the wall, brushing the wrinkles away and looking at the English examination for sixth years. Two incorrect answers out of fifty, mitigated by two correct extra credit answers. "You got two wrong," He drawled, watching as her quick excited motions ceased abruptly. She was retreating back behind the wall of polite distance that was so ugly, so emblematic of her faction, and he felt like an ass. "Hey, you worked really hard on this." He rallied, "You should be proud." He offered the results back to her.

"Pride is the root of human suffering," Beatrice contradicted him, but took the paper back and smoothed it in such a way as to belie her words. She stuck it between the pages of her textbook and looked at Eric shyly under her eyelashes. "I didn't want all your work to go to waste."

"It is through knowledge we rise above our lesser selves," Eric scoffed, "Don't think you Stiffs have a monopoly on dogma. Come on," He nudged her shoulder and her lips twitched reluctantly as they entered the quiet library. Her success made him feel awesome, made him want to do something nice. There was something in his bag that might do rather nicely, the effort of keeping a big stupid grin off his face made his cheeks hurt; her head might explode if he gave her an actual present. Hopefully in a good way.

He tossed his bag down on their table and plopped into the chair that had become his, rifling through his bag while she seated herself across from him, grammar text lying closed between them. "What are we working on today?"

The question brought him up short, and Eric glanced up across the table. "Do you understand what you got wrong on the test?" He found the thin softcover book at the bottom of his satchel and extracted it with the sound of quiet triumph.

Beatrice nodded, "Mixed up the comma and semicolon again. I'll remember it next time."

"Do you need more practice?"

"No!" Beatrice squeaked and then clamped her hands over her mouth, appalled at the noise. "No," She tried again at a more moderate volume, "I've got it, promise."

Eric narrowed his eyes at her in pretend suspicion, "I'll believe you, for now. Here," He slid the thin book of puzzles and brainteasers across the table. "Congratulations on your A."

Beatrice stared at the cheap blue cover as though it would bite. "You don't need to- why?" Too many questions fought to be the first one voices aloud and she stumbled over her words.

Her reaction was exactly as satisfying as Eric had suspected it would be. "It's an Erudite thing, don't worry about it." Beatrice's cheeks got very red and he smirked at her. "Hard work and significant academic achievement should be rewarded. I think you'll like those."

She picked the book up and flipped through the pages, staring up at him, "But-"

"If you're not saying 'thank you', I can't hear it," He teased and the blush spread down her skinny neck.

"Thank you, Eric. This is really nice of you," Beatrice mumbled and turned her attention to the problems printed inside. "Can I write in it?"

"It would be kind of hard to solve them without writing in it," Eric reasoned and pulled a few of his textbooks out to get started on his homework. "We can take a break for one day, figure out what to do next tomorrow."

Beatrice nodded, already fixed on the teaser in front of her and dug blindly in her bag for a pencil. They worked together in silence for a good long while before she glanced up. "Excuse me, Eric?"

"Huh?" Eric grunted, inarticulate, as he re-read the text his aunt had assigned her special class that morning on the human genome. "What's up?"

"What happens to these sessions when I'm all caught up in my studies?"

Eric pinched the bridge of his nose; his mental capacity was not up to having this conversation and comprehending the mysteries of chromosomes and karyotypes. The two priorities fought, and the biology lost. Resting an elbow on the glossy pages he rubbed his stiff neck and gave his attention to Beatrice. "Sorry, what?"

She repeated herself, "What happens when I'm all caught up on grammar?"

The question blindsided him utterly. He hadn't ever really thought that there would be an end to this, much less that their success would be rewarded, or punished, with renewed separation. It didn't seem fair. "Maybe I could tutor you in something else?" He guessed, suspecting it was wishful thinking. "How are you in Faction History?"

Beatrice wrinkled her nose, "I'm not stupid, Eric."

"Hey, I'm trying to help you out here! Unless you want to go back to scrubbing locker rooms with your brother?" Eric snickered at her mortified expression. "I don't know, could you ask to be assigned to the library?

Her shoulders shrugged, cautious and unwilling to commit to any faint hopes. "I don't think it works that way. I'll try though. What will you do, when this is done?"

Eric let out a small huff of laughter, "Well, it's that or just pretend to be dumber than you are. Maybe this test was just a fluke."

Beatrice was utterly unimpressed with that proposal. She shook her head hard enough for her braids to lash her cheeks. "That would be wrong."

"Because it's lying?" Eric returned her look with a scathing one of her own.

"No," Beatrice teased the syllable out. "Because it just is. It's not fair to you, and it's selfish to want to keep doing this," She waved at the high shelves of books and the mess of papers between them, "Instead of helping the instructors and our fellow students."

"Selfish isn't so bad, I like it." He grinned, unrepentant, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

Beatrice shook her head at him, "Will you take on more students to help when this is done?"

Eric shrugged, "It's not like I have much more say in this than you do. I might ask for it to be an extended study session, some of the advanced classes are a little harder than I thought they'd be."

"Oh, really?" Beatrice's eyes lit up, "Like what?"

"Like this," Eric shoved his book across the table so Beatrice could look at the blurry grey images. "The Erudite faction leader is leading a class on genetics for the top percentile of students eighth years."

"Genetics?" Beatrice tasted the word and looked at the fine-printed text, bewildered.

"It's a rather niche branch of biology," Eric explained, sounding very grand to his own ears. "It's all about what makes you you, on a cellular level."

Beatrice nodded, latching onto a common thread of understanding. "We're learning about cells in Science."

It was so peculiar that most of the other factions lumped all their hard sciences into a single class, providing only the most basic level of understanding to such important fields. "Yeah, well did you instructor explain yet that all living things are made up of cells?"

"Yeah," Beatrice touched the back of her hand with a finger, face full of distrust. "He said that even we were made up of cells, but that seems weird."

Eric shrugged, "Weird doesn't make it untrue. You and me and the sandwich you had for lunch are all made of cells, and all of those cells have chromosomes inside them." He tapped the light and dark grey bands. "And those chromosomes have genes, and those genes say if you're a girl or a boy or a sandwich, or if you have yellow of brown hair; pretty much everything that makes you Beatrice is in your cells."

"Wow," Beatrice's eyes grew. "That's even weirder."

"You don't know the half of it."


	10. Behavioral Patterns and Deviations

She was late again, and Eric shifted uncomfortably as he checked his watch for the third time in five minutes. The bell had rung ten minutes ago and, if she wasn't in some sort of trouble or pulled into some important Abnegation activity, she should have been here two minutes after. One thing Beatrice was (besides Abnegation, strange, and an acceptable companion) was punctual. He waited until the lack of knowing was an unbearable itch under his skin, checked his watch again and finding only another minute had passed, decided he was done with waiting. An inner monologue of small grievances ran on loop as he packed his books and papers back up and wandered back to the main room of the junior's library.

It was so noisy out here, full of little kids who had no idea how they ought to act in this sacred space. He scowled at a particularly noisy group of Candor students; they gave him a wide-eyed look of fear and dropped their voices to whispers. Eric couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from turning up in a smile; he didn't know quite when he had gotten this new power over the littler kids but he liked it a lot. Stopping by the front desk, he brightened his smiled for the attendant. "Hey, Miss Baker. Have you seen Beatrice today?"

"'Hey' is not an appropriate salutation to an instructor, Eric." The criticism was given without rancor and the librarian returned the smile. She checked her log, then her watch, and the smile faded into a sad, stern line of her mouth. "Beatrice has not checked in today. At this point I'm going to have to mark her absent. School policy, you know."

Eric nodded gravely as she drew a neat little x beside Beatrice's name. "I understand. Thank you for checking, ma'am. May I go look for her?"

"Students aren't supposed to go wandering the halls during this period." Miss Baker reproved, but wrote out a short note for him none the less. "Come back if you can't find her and don't let me hear you've been up to any mischief."

"You bet!" Eric grinned at the librarian and trotted out the doors into the echoingly empty hall. It hadn't been that long since he was a junior student himself, but it all felt different now: smaller. The ceilings were lower and the time-out chairs in the hall were sized for little kids. Advanced students didn't get sent to time-out for disciplinary purposes. Still, the layout of the halls hadn't changed in a year and he scouted the long empty spaces until he heard voices. Walking quietly so that the sound of his footsteps didn't give him away, Eric approached and peered around the corner, looking into the alcove that held the coat racks for the sixth years. Two students, Erudite by the navy blue blazers and the girl's skirt had their backs to him, blocking his view of whomever they had cornered. Counting on their distraction, Eric eased around the side until he could see the top of a blond head over their shoulders.

"Leave them alone! It's not their fault!" He didn't need eyes to recognize Beatrice's voice.

The male Erudite student, unfamiliar to him, lashed out with a ringing slap of skin on skin. The blond head bobbled in response, disappearing from his view. "Don't talk to your betters that way, stupid. Of course it's their fault."

"Yours too," The girl beside the strange boy added nastily. "Everyone knows the Stiffs are just crawling disease, revolting Factionless-lovers that you are."

Eric moved further along the wall, trying to stay outside the Erudites' peripheral vision, watching as Beatrice straightened and reinserted herself between her assailants and a cluster of little first years decked out in grey.

"Right," Beatrice scoffed, "Because it was obviously the firsties, who you never interact with unless it's to be cruel to, who got you sick when literally the entire student population came down with influenza. It couldn't have been the kids you see every day or your parents who do God-knows what or even the Abnegation students big enough to defend themselves." She saw the next blow coming and got her arms up in time to cover her head before the punch landed, though the force made her sway in her boots. "At least you're smart enough to pick on people who don't fight back. I guess all those brains are good for something after all."

The two students in blue exchanged puzzled glances, clearly boggled by the odd response coming from the Stiff in front of them. Beatrice lowered her arms to peek out at her attackers, and they lunged at her together, shoving and shouting, fists raining down on her wildly. Beatrice went down under the onslaught, head making a hollow clunk as it connected with the floor and Eric's vision blurred in anger. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" His voice was quiet to his ears, but the brawling trio froze and he dragged the older students off his friend by their ears. They were slightly taller than he was, towering over Beatrice, but that didn't matter. "How dare you pretend to be Erudite if you let yourself be manipulated into idiocy by a junior student?" He twisted the cartilage between his fingers until the boy let out a yelp of pain. "So you got sick? Big deal, so did everyone else and you don't see them taking it out on the Stiffs – or are you even dumber than the Dauntless?" Eric let go of his hold on them and shoved, driving them away from the silent audience of Stiffs. He knelt beside Beatrice, where she was curled tightly on the ground. "You okay?"

The unknown Erudite girl was running off in a patter of Mary-Janes but they boy was holding his ear and staring down at Eric with intense dislike. "You must be Coulter. I heard a disgusting rumor about a Nose who was all over the Stiffs. Guess you need to surround yourself with morons to feel like a big guy, huh?"

Adrenaline thundered through his veins and roared in his ears. Eric's palms were sweaty as he helped Beatrice sit up and somehow kept his voice cool and detached. "Is that really the best insult to my intelligence you could think of? Why don't you try again?" He stood, planting himself in front of the boy and staring down his nose at his peer, for lack of a better description. "Or you could try fighting someone your own size." It was a terrible line and he should probably do something with his hands other than leave them shoved in his pockets, but the boy was backing away.

"Your father only married your mother for her looks!" He was off running before Eric could respond, which suited him just fine. He know the slur on his family wasn't true and since he had actually never been in a fight before, a tactical retreat from his enemy was probably the best outcome. He turned back to Beatrice and stepped back when he saw the smaller kids cluster around where she remained sitting, rubbing at a tender patch on her scalp.

"Are you okay?"

"Does it hurt?"

"Do we need to get a teacher?"

Her shoulder rose and fell as Beatrice gulped deep breathes, shock or over-stimulation from the crowding, Eric couldn't tell which. He didn't know how to make it better, but his friend was brave and she squared her shoulders and smiled at the kids. "Don't worry about me, go on back to class before you get in any trouble, okay?"

As a group, they goggled at her and then chorused, as had been drilled into their heads from birth, "Thank you, Beatrice, for your gift to us."

"You are welcome." Beatrice sweetened her smile and shooed them off again. "Now go back to your activity and take care of each other."

Five heads nodded up and down and then the children lined up and filed away, detouring to stay a fair distance away from Eric as they returned to their classroom. Eric waited until they rounded the corner and the pitter-patter of little feet faded. "Are you okay?" He tried again, crouching beside her.

Beatrice slumped, cradling her head in her hands as the need to put on a front for her faction-members faded. "Heard hurts." She muttered, poking the swelling lump and flinching.

"Well stop poking it then," Eric caught her wrist as she went to prod at the injury again. "What was that all about?"

He caught a quick glance of scrapes on her knuckles before she pulled her hand away and pulled herself up to her feet. "You probably caught all the important bits." Beatrice grimaced, "I shouldn't have made a scene."

Eric raised an eyebrow at that. "You were trying to distract them from the littler kids, right?"

Beatrice nodded and then gripped her head, squinting her eyes shut. "It's not right, the bigger kids picking on the little ones who can't fight back." She exhaled slowly and let go of her head. "I hate it, Eric, I hate them, I hate bullies and I hate that this stupid school does nothing about it and we're just supposed to go on like it's okay." Her voice roughened and she fingered the red handprint on her cheek.

He felt, a little, like he should defend the institution that represented his faction. "What do you want them to do? The teachers have jobs, responsibilities to the students. They can't stop doing that to monitor the halls." It wasn't a very convincing argument, even to his ears, and he couldn't quite meet the younger girl's ferocious expression.

"The Dauntless dependents could do it. They just go home after school, they do their faction activity… wherever they live." The idea was tossed out there, off the cuff, and hung in the air between them.

Eric blinked, trying to wrap his head around the shifted paradigm. "That would make sense," He frowned, mind clicking through the possibilities, breaking the 'should' and 'could' into concrete tasks to be completed. "I'll talk to my mother about it. She works pretty closely with the school administration. She'll know what to do." He tried to put on a reassuring smile for Beatrice, but it felt plastic and fake and she didn't appear to buy into it. "I thought Abnegation had rules against fighting. Won't you get in trouble?"

Beatrice shrugged, "There are rules against instigation." She rolled the word around like it didn't fit comfortably on her tongue. "It's okay if they start it and you step up to protect the larger group. It's sacrifice, then. That's okay."

"That's weird," Eric mulled it over, "Has anyone ever done that for you?" It would fit the pattern that he'd seen, it was always the tiny scrap of grey material and yellow hair standing stalwart against anything and everything, bending under the blows but always jumping into the fray again and again. It made him feel very small, sick, and insignificant.

Her smile lit up her face even as a bruise started to bloom on her swollen cheek. "You did."


	11. Holidays and Exchanges

**A/N: Thanks ever so much for the fantastic reviews you all left last time around! They do so much to brighten my day, and I love chatting with you lovely people about Divergent. It's always a pleasure to hear what you think!**

* * *

Life set in with a vengeance as the seasons turned and the end of term exams loomed large in the students' collective awareness. Together, Eric and Beatrice guarded the space that had become theirs and prepared for the upcoming trials, their heads bent over their respective texts or trading off on recitations. Even as a junior student Beatrice proved herself to be an adequate study partner, capable of checking his memorization against the answer key and beaming proudly when he was correct. In Eric's view it was a perfectly acceptable reward model.

Then came the exams themselves, four long days of stress and tedium, here and gone so quickly that all of the hours devoted to their preparation seemed like overkill by the time Eric completed his last one. He put his pencil away and walked leisurely through the hushed halls, past the library and out into the school yard, but didn't see Beatrice. He was exhausted, and so didn't think twice on it as he climbed into the transportation that bore the victorious Erudite students home for the winter break.

The time off was rather dull. When he was a little kid this time of year had been an event to look forward to, there had been gifts when he received his exam scores. That was before straight A's were something to be taken for granted, perhaps punished if in absence, but no longer worthy of reward. Now his parents stayed at their jobs for the duration, leaving him with the silence and the snow; his books and his family's computer connection. Even the books and network access left him with entirely too much time to stare out the window blankly and think about Beatrice. What was she doing, out in the snowy early evening, helping little old ladies shovel their walkways? Bringing warm clothing to the Factionless? Drinking something hot and listening to her family drone on about their boring Abnegation lives?

Did Abnegation participate in the custom of exchanging gifts over the winter holiday? He couldn't remember and dug through the bookshelf that dominated his bedroom, pulling out his Faction History text and flipping back to the index. It was a heavy tome, used for all four years of the advanced Faction History class and his arms got tired before he was done reading. He thumped it on his desk and pulled the chair up, flipping through the pages until he reached the section on cultural holidays and customs:

 _It is a curious thing to note that all the Factions observe the end of the calendar year in some fashion or other. There has been much debate amongst scholars as to whether this is an intended design to take advantage of the end of the academic term or some ancient custom lost to time. However, that this convergence of custom does exist cannot be denied, and as one of the few significant traits that span across all factions, merits further examination of the faction-variants in question._

 _Amity celebrates the birth of the new calendar year and the return of life in the darkness of winter. The passing of the Winter Solstice heralds the return of light and warmth that brings crops to fruition. To symbolize this, they light large bonfires that include a ritual branch of the tree that is their faction symbol. A large communal meal is consumed in the light and warmth of the fire, which is then left to burn itself out naturally and is never doused to accelerate its cooling. (There has been significant debate as to whether the fire indicates some ancient tie to the Dauntless faction; but as of this publication there is no hard evidence to connect the two and until such evidence can be provided, the author must consider this connection to be coincidental.)_

 _The Erudite faction observes the end of the academic term and the corresponding progress reports of its dependents that accompany such an event. Though not widely celebrated by childless faction members, the end of term is a critical period of a dependent's development that provides much needed respite from the stress and anxiety of testing periods. The reward model utilized by Erudite parents, i.e. providing gifts of sweets or books in exchange for superb academic performance, provides a healthy incentive for younger children to strive for perfection in their studies and creates some small delight than can be anticipated for weeks in advance, building a healthy and well-rounded psyche._

 _Dauntless, much like Amity, observe the Winter Solstice, drawing heavily on the symbolism of darkness and fire. Unlike the Faction of Kindness, they focus on reveling in the longest night of the year, not only creating fires of truly enormous proportion, but also engaging in elaborate "pranks" amongst themselves including kidnapping their fellow faction member's dependents and ransoming them back in exchange for sweets. There is speculation that these "pranks" are the source of the annual resurgence of Dauntless-themed graffiti during this period of laxity._

 _Abnegation refers to the entire month of December as "The Season of Giving", culminating with the week off dedicated to providing aid to the needy in the coldest time of the year. Elaborate meals are cooked and delivered to the Factionless as well as gifts of small hand crafted toys and supplies that would, under ordinary circumstances, be considered frivolous. Scholars of ancient history point to parallels between the terminology used by the Selfless and the Christian faith, still in limited observation among a minority population of Abnegation and Amity. It would be erroneous to claim that either Faction claims to use this time to witness the birth of a god, though individual beliefs on this area are subject to the usual variances._

 _Candor does not celebrate anything specific in this period, but point to the benefits ascribed to the time off by Erudite as fitting for their own dependents and the irrationality of being the only ones in attendance during this period while the other factions are excused…_

It was not a useful reading and Eric slammed the hard cover shut with frustration before returning it to its proper place on his shelf. He'd ask Beatrice about it the next time he saw her, he decided, and there'd be no harm in putting something aside for her anyway. Giving her the puzzle book had been sufficient fun in its own to justify another gift on even the flimsiest pretense.

* * *

The name 'spring term' felt like a serious misnomer the first day back. It drizzled and sleeted and was sufficiently unpleasant that even an Erudite aptitude wasn't quite enough to make Eric leap out of bed and rush to get ready for his return to school. The second term promised to be much the same as the beginning: the same subjects advancing through the same curricula at a now familiar and yet still agonizing pace.

Eric took a quick detour at lunch to the announcement boards by the main entrance of the school, scanning the list of faction activity assignments until he settled on the label beside his name. The digital display read, for all the world to see, _Coulter, Eric: Study Period – Genetics Lab._ His aunt had been over her expectations for the coming term that morning – the tablet he had received as a gift on the last day of the holiday was a new educational tool that the Erudite leader was piloting. She had told them that developer's theory was that the interface would improve educational results in the users by 20%. It had come loaded with lab sims, exercises, and additional content for her class, and the faction activity time was to be used for further exploration. Student input, she had told them, was of critical need to the team that had labored over this, and they were to include regular feedback on its use as a part of their weekly assignments. Eric touched his bag, lighter with the electronic replacing several of his heavier books, grinned at the tiles underfoot and then trotted down the line to where the Junior P's were displayed. He found Beatrice in front of the relevant section of the display, straining on her toes to read the line of print significantly above her eye level. "Prior, Beatrice – Advanced Library Assistant. Congratulations?"

"Hello Eric," Beatrice settled back on her heels and shook out her aching calves. "Thank you for your help."

Eric frowned, pensive, at the glowing screen and then shook the mood off, nodding a greeting back. He liked the library well enough as a quiet place to study or read, but suffered no illusions as to the tedium that went along with working there full time. "Wonder what the advanced librarians need a junior student's help with."

"I'll let you know when I find out," Beatrice promised. "What'd you get? More tutoring?"

"Study period," He shrugged, not wanting to go into the details. Surely she wouldn't be interested in the minutiae of his academics. "How was your holiday?"

Beatrice shrugged, "Cold, mostly. We spent a lot of time with the factionless; brought them Christmas dinner and gifts."

It took Eric a minute to place the holiday name, just a foot note he had glanced over while reading the Faction History text. "Is that the same thing as the season of giving?"

"I thought you knew everything," Beatrice teased, then relented. "December is the Season of Giving. Christmas is the birth of God, which we observe by performing acts of kindness and charity."

"And that makes it different from the rest of the year in Abnegation, how exactly?"

Beatrice frowned, disapproving and stern. "That doesn't matter. We brought them a hot dinner and said grace together. Some of the older factionless sang songs. It wasn't so bad. What did you do?"

"Not much," Eric shrugged a shoulder, "Got some new books and my exam results: straight A's."

She clapped her hands together, eyes shining with admiration. "Oh, congratulations! Your family must have been so proud of you! That's very good!"

Eric really didn't want to talk about this. "It's no big deal if you're Erudite. They just kind of expect it. Here," He cast around for a clever distraction and found one waiting in his bag, digging the small blue wrapped package out. "Happy Holidays."

Beatrice stared at the small square of blue paper, flushing from the modest neckline of her grey dress to the tips of her ears. "Eric, I can't take this."

He shook it at her, gently, and it made the faintest rustling sound. "Sure you can. Stick out your hands and say 'Thank you, Eric.'"

"No," Her hands were twisting in her skirt, feet shuffling in place. "I mean I didn't get you anything. I'm sorry."

Eric considered this for a minute, watching the girl in front of him shrink into herself, becoming more upset and embarrassed by the moment. This was not what he planned, not at all. "Well, once you accept the gift, you could share it with me." He smirked, "And get me something extra-nice next year."

Beatrice exhaled a breath that seemed to come from the very soles of her boots and the puce color faded to a more manageable scarlet. "Thank you, Eric."

He pressed the small box into her palm and tried very hard to hold still as she fumbled the thick glossy blue paper off and opened the small white box to reveal six small brown lumps inside. "They're chocolate truffles. Traditional Erudite treat. Try one." His words tripped over themselves in an effort to get out and didn't quite achieve his desired level of eloquence. With baited breath he waited as she selected a darker looking one and took a nibble off the edge.

"Oh, goodness," Beatrice mumbled, treat still held in front of her mouth as the unfamiliar taste hit her.

"Do you like it?" He could see that she didn't, that it had been a terrible choice of gift; that he had failed to live up to even his own expectations.

"It's very strong," She sounded ever so slightly reproachful, but took another nibble. "And different. We don't have anything like this at Abnegation." She held the still mostly intact truffle out, "Here, we can share." She waited until he bit off a piece of his own and passed it back. "Happy Holidays, Eric."


	12. Exploring New Spaces

Spring snuck in while no one was paying attention, gradually warming the air and banishing the snow until Eric noticed one afternoon that the air was warm, the sun was shining, and at long last it was nice enough out to take his things outside and study. There was a weathered wooden bench by the school entrance, half-shaded by an equally weathered tree and he settled there to work. It was good to escape the stifling walls of the school for a little while; the constant stress of his fellow students was annoying at best, their constant chatter about classes a perpetual distraction from the work Aunt Jeanine assigned. She had dropped hints, both subtle and obvious, that not all of the current class would be welcomed back next year and that her determination would be made based off their performance this semester.

Eric had vowed that he would not be among the population cut from the roster; he knew he was twice as smart as his next closest competitor. There was no way he was going to lose. Ignoring the conversations and study groups his peers had set up to cope with the increase in pressure and difficulty, he instead immersed himself in all the available information on the topics covered, borrowing his parent's network connection to dig into most current publications and additional simulations. His current task for the afternoon, though, was completing the simulation the Erudite leader had assigned this morning. The assignment was extremely annoying: a simple matching exercise between pictures of damaged chromosomes and the corresponding disease. The problem he was facing was that the images were actual karyotype samples in blurry shades of grey, bunched together in the natural sample-state. It had been so much easier when the images were computer generated models with bright primary colors highlighting the defects.

The tablet blipped in disappointment, showing his success rate for the exercise at 80%, and Eric cast the device down on his lap with a growl of frustration. He was better than this; he would re-read the chapter and do it again until it was perfect. His head ached, eye strain the most likely source, and he let his head thud back against the low back of the bench, stretching out the tension in his neck as he stared, upside down, at the brick building. High above him, half hidden by the overlapping branches, a window creaked open and a small head and shoulders poked out into the open air.

"Eric? Is that you down there?" Beatrice's voice filtered down through all the air separating her from the ground and she stuck her arm out to wave down at him.

Eric shaded his eyes against the slanting afternoon light and half-heartedly returned the gesture. "What are you doing up there?"

"What? I can't hear you!"

With a sigh that bespoke of his great suffering, Eric heaved to his feet, turned towards the building and cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify the sound. "I said: What are you doing up there!" He hollered up and saw her shake with amusement, even if the corresponding giggle was lost in transit.

"Come up and see!" She called back down before disappearing from sight and slamming the window shut.

Rolling his eyes, Eric bent over and packed up his thing and then trudged back into the claustrophobic building. It was a short hike up two flights of stairs to the advanced students' library and the both students and librarians ignored him he edged through the now familiar space to the back wall where he thought she might have poked her head out.

"Psst."

The hiss caught his attention and Eric paused his search to look around for the source.

"Psst!"

The sound was closer and followed closely by a muffled giggle. Another look around yielded nothing, so Eric stopped, thought and then studied first the carpet under his polished shoes and then looked up at a merry face obscured by a mesh ventilation cover. "What- how?"

Beatrice laughed again, radiating delight at her friend's wordless surprise. "Over here!" She beckoned him and then disappeared from view. He moved in the approximate direction she had gestured, weaving around bookshelves and tables until he reached a distant side wall.

A very dusty Beatrice, more beige than grey was waiting for him by a ladder cleverly painted to resemble the wall behind it. "Over here." She waved him over and then clambered up the ladder with a rustle of her long skirt, disappearing over the edge and into the dark hole above.

Eric hesitated a moment, just long enough to weigh the value of following her blindly to see whatever she wanted to show him versus walking away, not getting filthy and finishing his assignment for tomorrow. Curiosity won over rationality and he stripped off his blazer, folding it neatly into the schoolbag slung over his shoulder and hauled himself up after her. His arms were shaking when he wrapped his fingers over the lip of the entrance and Beatrice grabbed his hand, leaning back on her heels to counter his weight as she helped pull him up. Eric looked around the new environment, dusky in the weak yellow light of an ancient incandescent lightbulb and littered with beaten cartons, boxes, and long forgotten furniture. "What is this place?"

"Storage, I think," Beatrice wiped her hands on her skirt and walked off in a direction that seemed meaningful to her. "The librarians want to clean it all out and turn part of it into a study space over the summer." She rambled as Eric picked his way after her cautiously. "They showed me the entrance, isn't it clever, and asked me to look around for them." She bee-lined for the place where the roof slanted steeply downwards until it nearly touched the floor. "Isn't it cool? It's like a whole new world."

It was interesting, Eric had to admit that. "I wonder if the other classrooms on this level have something similar."

Beatrice nodded, "There's a wall over that way that seals this part off." She flapped a disinterested hand at the darkness to their left. "Maybe there's another entrance from one of the other areas? I don't know."

Eric let her continue on, ducking as the roof closed in over their heads, the rough wooden support beams brushing against his hair. Hopefully all her chatter had scared off any lurking spiders.

"Look!" Beatrice commanded, pulling a string that made a loud thumping sound and let in a rush of fresh air and sunlight. "It goes onto the roof!"

"And?" Eric didn't see the point.

"And I want to go up on it and see!" Beatrice grunted as she strained to move a crate nearly as tall as she was. "Will you please help me?"

She looked so plaintive and guileless and Eric was gripped with a twisted suspicion that if he said on she might refuse to lead him back to the exit ladder. "I'm a terrible influence on you." He gripped the edge of the crate and pulled while she pushed until is squeaked into position and he hoisted himself onto the edge.

"Probably," Beatrice scrambled up beside him and hopped, stretching and failing to get ahold of the portal to freedom. "Oh, no," Her face contorted briefly with unhappiness. "That's very disappointing."

Eric rolled his eyes at the back of her head. "Is this why you called me up?"

"No!" Beatrice protested, "I wanted you to explore with me. You'd know what all this old stuff is-"

"Whatever," Eric grinned despite himself and tried a vertical jump himself, fingers brushing against the rough wood of the edge before he slipped down. Beatrice muffled a giggle and he glowered at her. "You didn't do any better, shrimp."

"I'm not a shrimp!" Beatrice planted her fists on her hips and glared up at him.

"Hush, let me think for a minute." Unknowingly, Eric copied her posture, hands on his hips, leaning back to study, analyze and then confront the problem in front of them. There had to be a way up – this trapdoor didn't make any sense otherwise. There probably was a ladder of some kind stashed around here, but it could be in any of the crates and boxes piled high around them, and he just didn't care to go digging for one now. That could take hours. He hopped again, feeling for the flex of the crate under his shoes, and when it seemed sturdy enough to support more than just them, he made a plan. "Here, get off." He nudged her shoulder and she jumped away like a scalded cat, skittering off the crate to a respectable distance away. "Don't be like that, do you want to get up or not?" He turned his back and began examining the smaller and mid-sized boxes, testing the ones he thought might bear his weight and hopping off when the paper-board crinkled under his feet. It took several tries, but he eventually found one that held and he beckoned Beatrice over imperiously. "We need to lift this." Sharing the weight between them they just barely managed to heft the smaller box onto the platform. "After you."

Beatrice ignored his hand held out to her, scrambling back up the small stack and balancing precariously on the highest box. Her fingers just brushed the underside of the roof and she wobbled, afraid to jump and fall. "It's still too high."

"You're too short," Eric contradicted and climbed up after her and took a moment of amusement in the fact that once she was standing on the higher ground he could just about look her in the eye. They were going to achieve this, together. "Here, step up." He bent his knees and cupped his hands, offering them to her at her new knee level.

"Please don't drop me," Beatrice didn't give him time to respond, but stepped into his outstretched hands, balancing with one hand delicately on his shoulder and he lifted and she stretched, getting a solid grip on the edge of the door. She kicked off his hands and fluttered her feet wildly as she dragged herself up and out of sight once more.

He would never drop her; she was stupid to even raise it as a possibility. Eric waited, impatient, until the way up was clear and he climbed up after her, getting a strong grip on the ledge before springing up and using the momentum to carry him halfway out. Rough shingles scraped his hands as he squirmed onto the roof and a strong wind pulled at his slicked down hair. It was bright up here, blindingly so, and he squinted against the glare until his eyes adjusted and he could see. Beatrice was already snaking towards the apex, a long and narrow ridge that was the highest point of the building and Eric gave in and followed her yet again, pulling himself up to sit beside her and gaze out over the distant sprawl. "Wow."

Beatrice agreed, "Wow," She echoed softly, shielding her eyes as an errant pigtail whipped past her cheek. "It's beautiful."

"I can see the wall from here," Eric grinned until his cheeks hurt. "And look, I think that's Amity."

"The people are so small down there," Beatrice pointed to a stream of Dauntless dependents running along the train tracks. "Oh, that looks dangerous!" She exclaimed as the train pulled up and the students jumped on.

Eric guffawed, "Says the crazy girl sitting on the edge of a roof."

"I'm not going to be hit by a train on the roof, Eric."

"You never know," He managed to keep a straight face. "It might derail and the inertial forces might carry it up the side of the building."

"Really?" She paled a little and edged away, back towards the trapdoor leading inside.

"Of course not, it is so statistically improbable it might as well be impossible." Eric shook his head at her and looked out over the sprawl. He could just about make out the Ferris wheel by the Pier and behind it light reflected off the gleaming white buildings of the Erudite research facilities. "This is really cool. We should come here again sometime."

Beatrice smiled up at him under her eyelashes, "I would like that."

And so they had a new spot, and met there as often as opportunity permitted.


	13. Father and Son

_A/N: Ain't dead, just busy. Still fully committed to seeing this story through, but RL kicked my butt for a few weeks (including the loss of about 10k words on this story, RIP) and I just couldn't make this click for the longest time. Thank you so much, Murmelinchen, this would not be what it is without your input! Readers should check out her story "Dauntless'oween", which is a lovely bit of holiday fun with our favorite ship._

 _At this point, I'd like to take a moment to mention that there are some_ _ **minor Allegiant spoilers**_ _from here on out, if such a word applies. We learn an awful lot about the world of Divergent in that book, and some of those things Beatrice will find out, or encounter allusions to, much earlier than in canon. I think they're passingly subtle, and of course there are no actual plot spoilers (how could there be?), but I wanted to give fair warning. If this is a deal breaker for you, I completely understand and this fic will still be here when you finish the books and choose to continue._

* * *

The first day of summer vacation, Eric awoke to a thunderous knock on his bedroom door at dawn. He struggled against the confines of twisted blankets as a booming voice rolled over his semi-conscious brain, too loud and too complicated to follow. "Huh?"

The door cracked open and his father stuck his head through the narrow opening, frowning. "I said get up, son, we've got a call for the field. Downstairs, five minutes." He pulled his head back out of sight and the door clicked shut behind him.

Eric rolled over and groaned, taking a minute to wallow in the injustice of being woken up at five o'clock to go out to some stupid site and take samples off of disgusting sick people. It didn't matter that he had no interest to speak of in epidemiology or that he was quite sure his talents lay outside of his father's specialty. The old man still insisted on dragging him along during the weekends and summer months to wherever he heard a new pestilence might be starting. With heroic effort he dragged himself out of bed and dug out an old pair of jeans and a white tee-shirt out of his laundry pile and dragged them on. It wasn't worth the effort to flatten his hair, or do anything besides brush his teeth and dig out some sneakers before slouching downstairs to the kitchen. "Morning."

His father finished pouring the pot of coffee into a thermos and passed it over. "Take this to the truck, I'll be out soon."

Eric forbore to roll his eyes and took the thermos, trudging out into the cool morning. The sky was edged with light to the East, the last stars in the sky fading out of existence. His father's truck was in its usual place, parked on the shoulder of the road with a trailer hitched to the back. He slouched against the hood until the door to his house cracked open and his father stepped out, half hidden behind a stack of supply crates. Eric knew the drill; he opened the truck's side door and stood back as his father fussed until everything was exactly where he wanted it. The door slamming shut was Eric's cue to take the thermos from where he had abandoned it and climb into the passenger side of the truck, pulling the safety strap snug across his chest.

The engine rumbled to life and then they were off, leaving the neat rows of white houses on carefully cultivated lawns for rows of factories that bordered the edge of the Erudite sector and separated the faction from the factionless. "What happened, Dad?" Eric ventured after they had been driving through the endless ranks of ugly brick walls for several long boring minutes.

His father shifted his grip on the steering wheel and pried open the thermos, drinking coffee while formulating an answer. "Dauntless patrol in the Factionless area think they found a pestilent colony. They followed procedure and called it in to their leaders. Those leaders called our leaders and they called me. Seem to think it's a new strain of leprosy from the Dauntless reports. So here we are."

"Awesome," Eric didn't even try to veil his sarcasm and his father whacked him on the ear. It stung and he glared at his old man.

"Don't be cute, boy, this work is critical to the continuing survival of our society. Plague is serious and if we can't monitor it, we'll be consumed by it."

"I don't see why," Eric grumbled and took some coffee from the thermos himself. "It's not like we have anything to do with the Factionless, anyway."

"Just because we don't have direct contact with the original carrier doesn't mean we don't have secondary or tertiary exposure." His father relaxed and engaged full on lecture mode. "It could be something airborne, or get into the water. Even if it's spread by contact, those do-gooder Abnegation insist on coming in and exposing themselves. And then they expose their children and their children expose you." The small frown in the wrinkles around his eyes deepened.

"But you expose yourself by coming out here to do research, right?" Eric persisted.

"It's different. I know the risks, I know how to minimize exposure. Those people just go in and slop around like everything is perfectly fine and there are no consequences to their actions because they place no value on their own lives!"

"Can't you teach them to be more careful?" It seemed reasonable to him, surely Abnegation could be compromised with. If they really were selfless, as Beatrice seemed to think, surely they would take no issue in working with Erudite to keep the rest of the city's inhabitants safe while doing their work. To do otherwise would be prideful, right?

"It's not that simple." His father took a deep calming breath. "Go back to sleep, kid, I'll wake you when we get there."

It wasn't a request and Eric curled up in the seat and stared dozily out the window as the scenery trundled by, factories morphing into ruins, empty windows and sagging roofs. The truck shuddered over potholes and detritus and the sun was well up over the horizon when it came to a gentle stop.

"Alright, you can quick faking. We're here." His father checked a tablet and winked when Eric glanced over at the screen. "Don't tell your mother. She wouldn't approve."

"About the computer?" Eric was confused.

"About any of it." His father's gesture encompassed the truck and surrounding wreckage. "She'd insist on dragging you to her office for the rest of the month to keep you out of the field."

He was pretty sure there was more to it than his father was letting on, but the threat was sufficient for him to comply. Mother's office was boring. "Okay."

"Good boy," His father turned off the truck and began digging through the contents of the crates he had loaded. "Put these on." A wrapped mass of blue cloth was tossed on Eric's lap and his father began ripping into a similar package. "Masks too."

Eric tore off the plastic and cracked the passenger door to shake out the bundle of material. A bit of exploring and he found the front of the coverall and jammed his legs in, hopping out to pull the heavy material up over his shoulders and work his arms through the sleeves. "Waders?"

His father glanced over from where he was zipping up his own suit, "Yeah, in the back under the masks and gloves."

The suit was hot and heavy, it dragged as Eric moved to the back of the truck and dug out the rubber boots that ended over his knees and with a scowl at the warm morning sun pulled the hood of the suit up, tugging the elastic snug until only his face stuck out. His father joined him, pulling on his own boots and digging out several heavy plastic boxes, setting them off to one side and then retrieving the heavy masks that would cover nose and mouth. He dragged it on over Eric's hood, securing the elastic straps and then tending to his own. The last element were the gloves, thin reinforced rubber that snapped over the sleeves of the suits and completed the seal. "Go prep the trailer, I'll be back out soon."

Eric glanced at the building casting shadows over the alley they were parked in, windows dark and empty or boarded over, splashed with rude graffiti and a corner of the roof sagging in. It was something of a relief to not go in, the last time his father had insisted he go in, it had been too dark to see, smelly, hot and excruciatingly unpleasant and the Factionless were deeply concerning, wild and unpredictable. "Will you be okay?"

"Do you remember the emergency protocols for field work?" His father dug out a heavy pair of goggles from a black case and secured them across his forehead.

The steps wavered in his mind's eye, and Eric nodded. "Page you on the radio if you're not out, 15 minutes. Call the Dauntless hotline if you don't pick up. Move inside the truck and lock the doors until they arrive."

"Good boy," His father smiled from behind his mask. "Now, trailer." He swung a small box of supplies over his shoulder and crunched over detritus, disappearing through a hole in the wall.

His pride in the compliment wore off as the footsteps faded, leaving Eric's ears ringing in the silence. He blew out a long breath and clicked the timer on his watch on, then trudged, weighted down by his protective gear around to the trailer they had dragged along with them. The door unlocked to the code he punched in and a gust of cold air hit him in the face. A single light flickered on and a climate control unit hummed on as the sun beat down on the tiny room. Eric pulled the door shut and began carefully spreading heavy plastic tarps on the long low table that dominated the room, hemmed in by counters and cabinets.

Finishing his assigned task, Eric checked his watch and frowned at the display; it had taken him thirteen minutes to spread out the supplies for whatever, whomever, his father was planning to bring back. The old man would not be pleased if he found out, efficiency was crucial, he always said. Lassitude was the cousin of sloppiness, and the enemy of excellence. Excellence was the key to everything. Still, checking his work again, he confirmed that he hadn't been sloppy or lax and everything was as it ought to be. Now where was his father?

The numbers on his watch crawled past 14 and, hating everything about this stupid situation, Eric edged around the now covered table to the corner where a radio handset hung in its charger. Thirty seconds to the cut off, then twenty, then ten. Mouth dry, Eric lifted the radio from the cradle and punched in his father's channel with clumsy hands. "H-hello," He coughed, worked some saliva around his mouth and tried again. "Hello, E-1, this is E-2, calling in as required. Do you copy?" His heart thudded double time, twice for each second scrolling past before his eyes. How long until he had to stop stalling and call for help? He couldn't remember.

The radio in his hand crackled, his father's voice coming in thin and scratchy, "E-2, five more minutes. Hold tight."

Eric stared and the black plastic case, lost, then reset the timer and returned the radio to its place. Five more minutes, he could wait. He had to, didn't he? Four minutes and twenty-eight seconds later footsteps crunched outside the trailer and Eric stuck his head out the door, hoping for the best. His father was still covered from head to toe in protective gear, and supported a lank, listless figure against his shoulder.

"Open it up, boy," The familiar voice of his parent ordered and Eric complied, pushing the door all the way open and hopping out to get out of their way. Even through his mask the person stank badly enough to make his eyes water. It was far worse that the odor of unwashed skin, something tainted and sick and even with the heavy protective gear, he was glad that his father had wrapped the Factionless person in a heavy cloth. He, or she, was weak, unable to stand on their own or climb the high steps into the room's interior, and seemed almost entirely unaware of the changing surroundings as sunlight was replaced be artificial. "Push, son," His father clambered into the trailer first and dragged at the bony arms.

His mask hid his distaste, and he could feel ribs poking out through under the blanket, and Eric pushed the stranger up, tugging the door shut behind him. "Sir?"

His father herded their subject onto the bench, pushing and prodding until they lay flat on the table, huddled under the blanket. "Swabs," He tugged the blanket around and shifted rags until a dirty stretch of skin, oozing and discolored was exposed. He took the supplies that Eric offered and dirtied the pristine cotton with blood, dirt, pus, and other less pleasant fluids, then passed the sample back for storage and analysis.

The Factionless person groaned, a deep inhuman sound, flailing at the prodding, or trying to get the covering back up to protect against the chill.

"Dad? What is it?"

"The reason why we're here," His father grunted, pushing the weak hands back out of the way. "Label these Subject 1, Topicals. Next set is Tissues."

Eric grimaced and swapped the dozen used swabs for fresh ones. Fitting them into the individual containers designed for their capture, he dared to ask, "Do these need to be refrigerated?"

"Does she look refrigerated?" His father scoffed and pried the clenched jaw open to another distorted cry. "Put the odd numbered ones in the scanner over there," He jerked his chin at a small panel on the wall, "And the evens in one of the red boxes."

Eric moved to obey, trying to block out the sounds of thrashing, limbs clunking against the metal platform and the muffled cries of distress. He hated this, hated everything about it, from the barbaric Factionless who could let themselves live like this, become ill like this, to the awful metal box he was stuck in to his Father's general indifference to all the misery around him.

"Stop it! What are you doing to her?"

He'd recognize that voice anywhere, and in his surprise he dropped the sample box, plastic clattering against glittering steel. His father's scolding was very far away as he recovered his burden, checked the seals and wheeled to face the frowning face poking in through a crack in the trailer's door from where he had neglected to seal it. "Beatrice! What are you doing here?" He glanced over his shoulder, at his father, inscrutable behind all the gear and technology he was swaddled in, and added, "You should leave. Right now."

"Eric?" Her eyes widened and she glanced rapidly between him and his surroundings. "I heard crying. What's going on?" She nudged the door open a little wider with her shoulder, climbing up on the steps to try and peer around him to the source of distress.

The Factionless woman lunged, throwing herself off the table, knocking Eric aside and barreling towards the tiny girl in grey. "Careful!" His father roared and electricity crackled through the air. The woman keeled over, clawing at the smooth metal of the floor inches from Beatrice's boots. "You must not let them touch you!" The woman twitched and he yanked the metal prongs out of her back and hauled her around the waist back on to the table. "Boy, get some restraints. Little girl, you should go. It's not safe here."

"Then what are you doing here?" She hadn't budged from where the Factionless woman had almost tackled her, knuckles white against a woven basket that she held protectively before her.

Eric swallowed bile and forced himself to look away from the pink frothy stain on the floor where the woman had fallen and two ghostly pale fingernails. There were restraints, he couldn't remember where, couldn't think, couldn't breathe with Beatrice this close, seeing him and his family like this. The full weight of their Factions' divide washed over him and numbly he dug the heavy ties out from under several boxes in one of the cabinets, passing the thick flexible straps over to his father. "It's his job." He mumbled, addressing the statement, or maybe excuse, to his heavy rubber boots, spattered with something slimy and wet.

"His job?" Beatrice narrowed her eyes, canny and suspicious of everything, of him. It hurt in ways that surprised Eric.

His father finished securing the woman to the table and cocked his head to one side, studying the stalwart little girl before clicking his fingers through thick gloves and nodding. "Ah, you must be Beatrice Prior, then. Andrew's girl, right?"

Beatrice shifted, a stance Eric had only seen the handful of times she had confronted tormentors her own age. "How do you know my father?"

"Now, that's not very polite." His father tutted, "No matter. The world is a funny place, isn't it? Explain our purpose to her, son."

Briefly Eric wondered if there wasn't any solvents in the cabinet strong enough to dissolve him here where he stood, face burning behind his mask. The order would not be denied, though, so he straightened and put on his best teaching behavior. "We have reason to believe a new disease has broken out among the Factionless. Our aim today is to collect biological samples and chart contagion patterns across the city, including epidemiological evolutions and biological mutations."

"Do I look like your Auntie Jeanine?" His father snapped. "She clearly didn't understand a word of that recitation. Again, but this time so a layman can understand it."

Eric couldn't contain a wince at the scolding, words flaying deep with the implication. He could do this. He would do this. "Doctor Coulter wants to understand how this disease changes and how it spreads, if it's just skin to skin contact, carried by animals or something else. We need to understand where the current cases are, and what the disease looks like at a microscopic level, to cure it and stop its spread." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father nod once in approval.

"Better. I'll keep going here; get the girl out before she does something stupid."

Beatrice held out the basket, giving him a quick glance of sealed plastic packages before the angle changed and they disappeared from view. "Can I-?"

"No!" His father thundered, loud and reverberating in the tightly enclosed space. "You've done quite enough for today. Boy, make sure she gets back to her people without hugging any more lepers."

Beatrice stared at his father a moment longer, then Eric moved to block her view and herd her off the stairs into the sweltering late morning. "That's your father?"

As they moved away from the trailer, she seemed smaller, more mousey, less powerful. Eric yanked his mask down and gulped the tepid air, trying to gather his fraying nerves. "Yeah. He can be a little… overwhelming."

Beatrice glanced up at him and then stared resolutely at their surroundings, silent and abandoned. "I thought he would be more like you." She walked in silence, overlarge boots scuffing against the rough cement, working up her courage. "You're not going to cure those people, are you?"

It felt like an attack and Eric bristled. "That's not his specialty. There are other doctors for that. They'll develop the cure and pass it along to Abnegation for distribution. He's only trying to figure out how they got sick in the first place. It's really important!"

"But that woman going to die, anyway." Beatrice stopped and turned, staring up at him with sad, wise eyes. "They're not your lab rats, they're people. Shouldn't they receive comfort even in their last days?"

"I know that!" He didn't know how to make her understand. "I know the Factionless are people, even if they're weird and dirty. I'm not a monster. We're not bad people." His voice cracked, the worst kind of betrayal when he was trying to make his point, and Eric took a moment to compose himself, stripping off his gloves carefully to avoid contact with anything that might have touched the sick woman, and stuck them in a baggie. "This is the best way we can help them as a whole, even if it's cruel to that one person. We'll be able to save others, because of what my dad does." Beatrice stared up at him, judging him and his argument, as though she was trying to weigh his words against a feather. He held out his hand to her; he knew she wasn't dirty, wasn't sick, that she was the best person he knew, even if he didn't always have the means to articulate it. "Come on, let's get back to your folks. This place is creepy."

She took a long moment to consider, and his stomach was in freefall until the tension eased from her eyes and she touched his palm briefly, pulling away before his fingers could close around hers. She fell into step beside him none the less with a shrug. "It's just the Factionless sector. We come here all the time."

"Alone?" Eric gives her a sidelong look that she caught only because she was giving him one at the same time. "Aren't you scared?"

"I think that's the wrong question to be asking. Fear would be selfish, remember?" She tried to smile and managed something rather wobbly.

"We have evolved a highly attuned fear sense for a reason. It's not selfish to want to not be hurt or to want to survive. It's just human."

"We don't have to be slaves to it, either," Beatrice folded her hands primly in front of her and lowered her head as they approached the square. "I should go. It was nice to see you, Eric. Thank you for walking me back."

"Not going to introduce me to your parents now?" The joke fell flat and died in the space between them.

"I don't think that would be a good idea." Beatrice shook her head slightly and peered around the edge of the building, scanning the sea of grey, black and multicolored bodies clogging the square. "Good-bye, Eric. Thank you for walking me back. I'll see you in school." She set her shoulders, slipped into the crowed and was lost to his sight almost immediately.


	14. Growing Pains

**A/N: Things happened and updates were delayed. This one was tough, any feedback would be appreciated, but had to go up before any of the others I wrote. Next one should not take as long and hopefully I can get back to a regular schedule soon. Thank you all for the support so far, it means everything to me.**

* * *

His mother dropped the news one hot summer evening as they were washing up after supper. "The annual trip's moved to Abnegation this year. The official announcement will be circulated tomorrow."

Eric kept his face carefully blank and scraped leftover vegetable scraps and chicken bones into the garbage. The statement, dropped into the silence so abruptly, sounded like a trap to him, like his parents were just waiting for him to react, catch him off guard and bombard him with questions about his 'little Abnegation friend'. His mother, in particular, was watching like Eric was constantly on the verge of doing something that should be jotted down in a field book for further behavioral analysis. "Okay," He said, because he had to say something; the silence would be just as obvious as an overt emotional display. "Did they say why?"

"Of course they'll say why. Candor can't just upset time-honored tradition without providing some justification, however shoddy it may be." His mother's lecture was missing its usual scorn; Eric wasn't sure if that should be a relief or of further concern. She shook her head, careful to not muss her short blonde bob. "Mr. Kang's been giving us the run around about it. Its Candor's turn, of course, so he requested that the visit be moved up to avoid conflicts with the start of the academic year. We tried to communicate the complexities involved, but that faction is just so irrational sometimes, what can you do?" She broke off gesturing to cross to the cabinet and pour herself a small glass of wine before continuing. "So we moved it up, found some stop-gap topics to occupy the students for their first few days back and then that wretched man tells us that Candor can't host at all this year, they're overwhelmed, all of a sudden of course, with setting up the trials for those disgusting dissidents. The Abnegation rep offered their facility in his stead; you can just guess how well that one was received." She shot his father a pointed look that Eric couldn't quite interpret.

His father shrugged, "You said it yourself, Candor's not known for being clever. The Hub's not exactly going to inspire the same sort of interest as the Court or the Markets, right kid?"

"Whatever," Eric shrugged and turned back to the sink, rinsing plates and loading them into the washer. Apathy was expected and meeting expectations was easy.

"See? Hardy creatures, teenagers. They won't suffer any lasting damage from a little early Abnegation exposure." His father winked and Eric's heart pounded in his mouth as he fled from the kitchen to the unobserved solitude of his room.

* * *

The trip to Abnegation dragged; the buildings were ugly, the content was boring, and the students were so carefully monitored that it was impossible for him to sneak off and find Beatrice. The drudgery there poisoned his entire last week of vacation, up to and including the small celebration of his 14th birthday.

It was a relief when school started again and he was able to lose himself in the crowds of students, where he was just another student, albeit a fairly remarkable one. No one wanted to study him under a microscope at least, just compete for the best marks. He could handle that.

What he couldn't handle, apparently, was Beatrice's prolonged absence. She wasn't anywhere he looked, not their spot above the library, or in the junior's stacks, or anywhere else he could think of. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to grit his teeth and seek out her brother, Caleb, during the lunch period. It took several false starts and almost an entire morning of rehearsing in his head and in a notebook until he felt like he had a decent chance of asking the question without looking like a ridiculous idiot.

Abnegation students were sitting in their normal place; the quietest corner of the cafeteria and Eric approached the knot of grey-clad backs with as much cool bravado as he could summon. "Hey, Prior?" He didn't have to shout to speak over the quiet murmurs.

Several dozen eyes fixed on him and eventually a dark head turned towards him and Caleb nodded. "Good afternoon, Eric. Would you like to join us?"

Eric shook his head, "Can I have a word?"

"Of course," The junior boy rose from his seated position and strolled over, following Eric to a relatively discreet distance away. "What do you want?"

This was a lot harder than he had thought, even with all the preparation he almost choked, brushed it off. Instead he persevered after all what did he really care if he made a fool of himself in front of a Stiff? Their opinions weren't worth that much. "Your sister, where is she?"

"Bea?" Caleb paused, visibly caught off guard before settling himself. "Why?" He folded his arms across his chest and straightened to his maximum height. "She's not your concern."

He was still several inches shorter than Eric, who made a point of keeping his posture easy, not threatened by some Stiff's posturing. "My concerns aren't your business." It didn't come out quite as smoothly as Eric thought it would, but he wasn't going to take it back or let that breach of his suavity take away from his cool.

"Caleb?" A small exhausted blond girl interrupted the retort the other boy was forming. "Is everything all right?"

It took him a solid minute to match the girl to Beatrice; she looked different, older, with her hair up and back in a tight bun emphasizing harsh features that had been soft and childishly round the last time he saw her. "Beatrice?"

Cautious grey eyes flashed up at him and she gave him the tiniest nod of recognition. "Will you please excuse us for a minute?"

Eric weighted his answers and nodded, "Come find me when you're done." He ordered and turned on his heel back to a bench where he could keep an eye on the pair, standing close together but too far away for him to make out their conversation. His heart hammered as they wrapped it up and she turned, surveying the crowed until she found him in it.

She glided across the floor and stopped in front of him. "Hello, Eric. What can I do for you?"

He hated that new cadence in her voice, hated the quiet demure manner, the way everything about her seemed worn and muted. He didn't know what to say, all of his planning had brought him to this point, but he had always assumed that they'd be just as comfortable together after a summer apart as they had been last year. Perhaps he had been wrong and that was discouraging on so many levels. "I was looking for you. Where've you been?"

Beatrice drew back a half step and cupper her elbows in her hands, shrinking in on herself under the scrutiny. "I apologize if I caused you worry. Abnegation has given me more responsibilities as an elder student."

It didn't take a mathematical genius to find the flaw in that statement. "You're twelve," Eric contradicted her, "That's still a junior for a whole 'nother year."

She twisted, rubber soles of her boots squeaking against the linoleum floor and wouldn't look at him. "I don't think it's an age thing, exactly. It's just different, okay?"

"Is that the best excuse you can think of?" Eric scowled at the top of her head as her face was hidden from his view. "Tell me what's changed."

The tips of her ears flushed, "I don't think you want to know."

Eric snorted, "Nose, remember? Please, Beatrice, you are figuratively literally killing me here." She peeped up at him through her fingers and he tried his best shot at a winning smile.

It seemed to work because she shuffled the half-step closer and mumbled through her fingers, "GotmymensesandnowI'mawomanandcan'ttouchboyselseI'llhavebabies."

It took him a good several seconds to parse the rushed sentence and then Eric grimaced. Puberty was just another facet of biology to Erudite, it was taught the same way cells and photosynthesis was. "I don't think that's right." He objected. "And that explanation isn't sufficient for what I was asking."

"You don't know it's wrong, though," Beatrice pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands and perched on the bench as far away from Eric as was physically possible. She shrugged unhappily. "I don't want to talk about it here." She glanced over at the knot of her fellows. "I think they're watching us."

Eric glanced between the huddled girl and the heads turned pointedly away from them. "What happened?" He asked again, stomach sinking to the general vicinity of his knees.

"I think someone told the leaders about us," She whispered at the worn leather toes of her boots. "I had lessons with Mr. Eaton over the summer about being a good Abnegation member, and the adults are always watching me. I've caught them at it, Eric. We have to be more careful, if we're to stay friends at all."

"Of course we're going to stay friends. They can't watch you here. Erudite would never let Abnegation spy on its pupils." Eric spoke with utter conviction. How could they just stop being friends? Emotions couldn't be swayed by reason.

"I don't want to bring you any trouble." Some of the tightness around Beatrice's eyes eased. "We can talk more in our usual place? Meet at lunch time tomorrow?"

"Of course," He didn't even have to think about that reply. However complicated it might be to talk his way into the library during lunch hour, it would be worth it to get to spend time with Beatrice. He was looking forward to it already.


	15. Education in Life Sciences

**A/N: Happy Thanksgiving, American readers! This chapter was somewhat unplanned, but our two protagonists had quite a bit left to say to each other after the last update so you get an update a little early. As an aside, would anyone be interested in doing a holiday (December/ January) fic exchange? Or know of any communities running one? If you think it'd be fun, shoot me a PM and let's discuss.**

* * *

Eric paused on his way to their meeting place above the library to dig through the life sciences section for a particular tome and then slipped up the ladder. The attic space was cleaner, better organized, and he was able to weave around the stacked crates to the trapdoor embedded in the roof. Beatrice was there already, stretching up on her toes to spring open the door. It fell open with a thump, highlighting her in a beam of sunlight and sprinkling fallen leaves on her head and shoulders. "Hey."

"Oh, good afternoon, Eric." Beatrice gathered her skirts in her hands and hopped down from her perch. "How do you do?"

The question annoyed him, and he shrugged, reaching out to pinch a dead brittle leaf off the crown of her bun. "Fine, I guess. What's gotten in to you?" Eric scowled as she flinched away.

"I told you yesterday," Beatrice edged back until her heel clipped the crates lining the walls and brushing at her hair until she located the piece of debris that had caught his attention.

"And I told you that thing with the touching was wrong." Eric brandished the book he had grabbed before coming up. "Who told you that?" He flipped to the index, juggling his bag and tablet awkwardly as he dragged a finger down the page.

Her forehead wrinkled in a heavy frown. "My father, Mr. Eaton," Beatrice screwed her face up with the effort of recollection. "They said that touching is a very private thing done by married people for making babies."

Eric stuck his nose in the air to indicate just what he thought of Mr. Eaton's scientific aptitude. "Well they're wrong, and this chapter shows it." He flipped the book around and presented Beatrice with the chapter on human reproduction that had been included in his academic education and apparently neglected on hers. "It's written by doctors, scientists who know what they're talking about and have been peer reviewed so it's truth."

"You're talking all weird," Beatrice huffed and took the book, nearly dropping as she goggled at the images. "Ew! Those people are naked! That's gross!"

She tried to shove it back at him but Eric dodged, grinning at her expression of disgust. "Yeah, whatever, that's a part of it, I guess. Think about it this way: the Amity kids touch each other all the time, right? They're not having babies until after they go through their Choosing. The clothes are important." He ran a hand through his hair and then tried to flatten it, "Here, why don't you just read the first part and then see if it makes sense. And we should go onto the roof, it's too dark and stuffy in here; you'll ruin your eyes and have to wear glasses like some kind of Nose."

"I guess," Visibly torn between reading on and cringing away from the nude images in disgust, Beatrice glanced up at him. "You don't wear glasses."

"No, I take care of my eyes. You should too." Eric rolled his own perfectly functioning eyes at her and pointed up at the skylight. "Now let's go, it smells weird down here."

"I don't smell anything," Beatrice objected, stepping back from him and holding the offensive book out in front of her like a shield.

Eric scowled at her, "Suit yourself then," Unencumbered by the book, he hauled himself up the crates and rolled out onto the roof, leaving his legs dangling down into the dusty attic space. The air was fresh and cool with the promise of changing seasons, he pulled out his tablet on the pretense of ignoring his sulky companion and pulled up his current reading assignment. He heard Beatrice huff below him and tried not to smirk as she perched bellow him, immersing herself in her reading. Soon she'd understand and things could go back to normal, or whatever passed for that.

Eventually the heavy board covers thumped shut and Beatrice hopped to her feet and clambered up the stack of crates below him. Stretching on her toes she passed the library book up to him for safekeeping. "I'm coming up now," She informed him and Eric obligingly swung his legs out of the way as she scrambled through the opening, sitting across from him on the slanting roof as Eric returned to his previous position.

"And?" He prompted when she seemed otherwise perfectly content to sit there silently. "What do you think?"

"I don't think Mr. Eaton was wrong," Beatrice wrinkled her nose. "There is an awful lot of touching involved. It is really gross. My parents don't even hold hands in front of me." She shuddered at the thought, utterly repulsed.

"Well they had to have done all that at some point or you wouldn't be here right now." Eric pointed out, though it was unpleasant to think of his parents doing anything as touchy-feely as holding hands. It probably fell under the 'useless emotional gestures' category. Sometimes they barely seemed like they could function in the same room together, much less suffer the proximity required for physical contact. "But you're not going to have babies if we touch hands or anything like that."

Beatrice folded her hands into her sleeves and gave him a suspicious look. "It's not that simple! Girlfriends and boyfriends don't even hold hands in Abnegation. It's like," She waved her covered hands around helpless, searching for an adequate comparison. "Like going outside naked, except not quite as bad, I guess. It's rude, you know? It would be insensitive to the feelings of the people around you. What if they're lonely? What if they like the person you're holding hands with? You'd hurt their feelings."

"That's weird," Eric observed, "And chill out, okay? It wasn't the end of the world last year, it's not a big deal now."

"But it is to Abnegation values," Beatrice contradicted him. "You just don't understand."

Eric heaved a sigh that felt like it came from the soles of his shoes. "I guess not, but we were doing all right last year without all this weird stuff. I don't want it to change."

"I liked last year too," Beatrice agreed, sorrowful. "But I don't think we get to decide that."

He frowned at the space between their knees, "You mean because you think someone's watching you."

Beatrice looked up sharply at his tone. "I know they are. I'm not lying!"

"I didn't say you were." Eric sniffed at the outburst and raised his eyes to meet hers. "But how do you know? Why would anyone watch you? Why would they start now?" He fidgeted with his tablet, thoughts churning. "We've been friends for what, three years? If us spending time together was so bad, why would they wait this long to start observing? And to object and not do anything about it? That's crazy."

"Don't call me crazy," Beatrice fumed, a dangerous pink tinge sweeping across her cheeks. "That's very unkind of you."

"I didn't call you anything!" Eric banged his fist against the shingle in frustration and tried to take deep calming breathes. It helped, a little. "Quit making me out to be the bad guy. We want the same thing, right? A combative attitude won't help." She glared at him, as fierce a look as any he'd received from his fellow pupils, but held her peace. "Let me rephrase it: what have you encountered that indicates someone is watching you?"

Beatrice propped her chin in her hands and stared off at the horizon. "Lessons with Mr. Eaton. Caleb's been extra clingy. My parents have been pushing me to spend more time with Robert and Susan outside of scheduled activities."

"Who are Robert and Susan?" He didn't recognize the names, but in the current context hated them instantly.

"Our neighbors," Beatrice shrugged it off. "They're okay, nice, I guess."

"Nice for 'maybe spying on you'?" There was no point trying to exercise the self-restrain needed to keep the sarcasm to himself.

Beatrice didn't seem to react to it, merely nodded in agreement. "Perhaps, though I don't think it's malicious."

"Then why are you so concerned about it?"

She wrinkled her nose, trying to reconcile the two thought processes. "I don't know. Maybe it's unrelated to the other things? I know my brother means well, but…" Beatrice trailed off, unwilling or possible unable to complete her articulation.

"But he's kind of an ass and you don't trust him." Eric supplied, earning a dirty look from Beatrice.

"Don't say things like that!" She protested and he grinned, unrepentant. "You are so mean."

"Just channeling my inner Candor." Eric smirked and Beatrice gave a tiny huff of laughter. "But seriously, it wouldn't be the first time he's gotten you in trouble."

"I don't know," Beatrice chewed on a hangnail, unhappy with the consideration. "What about you? Do you think anyone's been watching you lately?"

The question brought Eric up short as he thought back over the last several months. "No, well, maybe? My parents have been getting on my case since, you know, that incident over the summer."

Beatrice blinked at him and then realization dawned on her face in a look of mute horror. "You mean with the Factionless woman. They've been asking about me?"

"A bit," Her reaction didn't make any sense to Eric. Their interest was annoying, but nothing sufficiently appalling to warrant her reaction. "Just how I know you, if we still hang out since the Activity's ended; basic stuff." It didn't quite capture the feeling of being a lab rat that he experienced every time the topic was approached in a tangential fashion, but there was no point burdening her with that. Emotions were subjective, he could just be imagining things that weren't there, or overreacting to something innocuous. No big deal.

"Do you think they'd have anything to do with this?"

"With Abnegation watching you? No way," That, at least, Eric was very confident in. "They're not really interested in what the other Factions get up to, unless it affects their work, and I can't see how you would play into that."

Beatrice hummed, considering the idea. "I guess you'd know."

Somewhere below their feet a bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period. Eric grimaced and slid his tablet back into his satchel, he shouldn't have expected to accomplish anything academic while talking to Beatrice, but the lack of progress still stung a little. "Meet up here again tomorrow?"

Beatrice winced, adjusting her school bag over her shoulder. "I'm supposed to be using this time to prepare for tutoring the Abnegation first and second years in the afternoon."

"They made you a tutor?" Eric wasn't entirely sure how to interpret that. "It's easy, just help them with the homework and answer their questions, you should be a pro at that stuff by now."

"Is that all you did?" Beatrice frowned, pensive.

"More or less," Eric hedged and nudged the Biology text back towards her leg. "Here, take this with you. In case there's anything else you want to know about."

Beatrice rested a hand on the heavy cover, eyes flickering between the engraved title and Eric's face. "I can't accept-"

"It's a library book," He cut her off before she could make some annoying selfless speech about not accepting gifts. "You're allowed to check it out at the desk."

"You took a library book up here without checking it out?" She sounded positively scandalized.

"We are still technically in the library," Eric countered and scooted forward, freefalling a few feet down back into the library attic. He waited until Beatrice lowered herself down through the skylight and offered her his hand. "We okay now?" He scowled at the crate under her feet, voice gruff and uncaring.

Beatrice tilted her head to the side, "Of course we are," She sounded mildly affronted and passed him down the book, freeing her hands to stretch up and shut the trapdoor behind her. "We'll be careful, right?"

She hopped down in a small cloud of dust and Eric handed her the book back, "Duh." His fingers itched to tug a pigtail she no longer had, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. "See you tomorrow, then."


	16. Day of Red Sun

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and feedback! Love hearing from you all. This chapter in particular was heavily influenced by '** _ **Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality'**_ **by Less Wrong. If you like Erudite-Eric and have a lot of free time I definitely recommend the read.**

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He didn't understand what was happening at first, but then again neither did anyone else. Eric was in Trigonometry, working through another proof that refused to work out the way he knew it ought when the air changed. There was noise in the hall, footsteps and urgent whispers, then a white-faced administrator popped his head through the door.

"We advise all students and faculty members to remain indoors and keep calm in this time of crisis! The greatest minds of our age are investigating the incident and we urge everyone to remain calm." His voice rose, betraying a certain amount of anxiety and just as abruptly his head disappeared and the door slammed shut behind him.

For a moment silence reigned, everyone stunned to silence, and then broke out in a flurry of concerned chatter, mathematics forgotten as speculations were born and flew around the room at the speed of sound. Eric put down his pencil and joined the throng by the classroom window, looking outwards for some sign of the oncoming cataclysm. Even in the back of the crowd he loomed over his peers and could see, unimpeded, to the schoolyard below. The sky was an odd metallic color, the light diffused and uneven. It was extremely unsettling to behold and he looked down to the courtyard as students started streaming out of the building and gawking up at something beyond his field of vision. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to wait around calculating the area under a curve if the world really was about to end.

At the very least he intended to go outside and see the spectacle as it arrived. Hopefully he would be able to find Beatrice on the way as well. That was important, to have someone to witness it with, to not be alone. Eric left his school things at the desk, spread as they were, still incomplete, and walked out of the room. The instructor was glued to her computer, knuckles white where they clenched around her stylus and did not try to stop him, probably did not even notice his departure. A few students followed him, the rest remained behind as instructed, huddled together, whispering or crying.

But many others were on the same trajectory, felt the same drive to get out and see, to not be trapped inside if the building was destroyed. They flowed out of classrooms and down the halls with a sort of deliberate, controlled chaos, silent and urgent, intent on getting out and finding family or friends. The crowd diffused into the courtyard outside and the hot, still air washed over Eric as he split from the fragmenting group and grimaced at the alien, electrical tang of ozone. He fought through the crowd to a relatively open space where he could stand and look up without being jostled by others. It was sick, so wrong that if not for the fact that everyone else was experiencing this same sort of hallucination, he might have thought it was all imagined. He had never wanted to be wrong, to be crazy, to be experiencing some alternate reality so much before. But he could not mistake the evidence of his eyes: the sun was a flat, lifeless red and missing a small concavity, like a small bite out of a bread roll. His stomach roiled and he looked down, as though that would make it less real, erase the image burned into his retinas.

Beatrice's face appeared in the vicinity of his elbow and her eyes were wide, locked on the ominous spectacle above them. "Eric? What's happening?"

The words locked in his throat, bereft of any certainty. All he could do was shake his head and mumble, barely audible over the rabbit-y pounding of his heart, "Don't know."

"Oh," Her eyes were the color of brass, reflecting the slowly darkening sun. "Is that the sun? I think I want to sit down." She folded her legs carefully and sat on the hot cement, never looking away as the dark wedge increased with a terrible, unhurried inevitability.

Eric joined her, looking around the courtyard as their peers settled in to observe, huddling in twos and threes, faction colors muted to browns and tarnished orange in the fading light. Fitting, maybe? What did the Factions matter, if this was where life in Chicago ended? His eyes tracked movements, towering silhouettes in black from where he sat moving through the crowd and taking up positions on the perimeter. The Dauntless dependents stepped into their role of protectors, guardians even in the face of unassailable fate. Careful observation let him see trembling and weakness, a few standing close enough to grip their hands together other in moments of trepidation, but strong and unbowed by fear. "Where's your brother?"

Beatrice blinked slowly, spellbound by the sight above. "He stayed inside. I had to find you."

Emotion, illogical, undefined, powerful, swept through him and Eric had no idea how to respond. "I was looking for you." Slowly, infinitesimally, the light faded and the sun was more than half gone when he finally reached for her hand. She didn't look at him, still locked in her observance, but she didn't flinch or pull away, just laced her smaller fingers through his and squeezed back.

"I'm scared." Her whisper was wobbly, small and weak, it seemed to carry to his ears under the susurrus of voices surrounding him rather than over, but he heard it like a gunshot in a silent night.

"Think you're in good company." His smile felt like a jagged tear in his face.

"Are you?"

"Yeah." He frowned at her and using his palm on the back of her head, pushed her to look away from the ghastly sight; the sun, just a sliver of murky light in a black sky. "Look at me, okay? Everything's going to be all right."

Beatrice trembled underneath his hand, blinked rapidly and then managed to focus on his face as the rest of the world was consumed in shadow, pupils blowing wide in a seamless blend of fear and night vision. "You don't know that."

His stomach flipped again, but she scooted closer and gripped him like he was the only real thing left in the world and that made him feel real, solid, alive for however much longer they could remain together. "We'll figure something out."

Beatrice huffed a tiny snort at such improbable optimism and just for a moment hid her face in his sleeve. "What if it's gone forever?"

"We still have electricity," Eric tried pragmatism, "Amity has sun-lamps. We're not dead yet." He risked a glance up, and decided it wasn't quite as bad as the slow disappearance had been. The dark sky was really almost like night time, with the addition of a faint circle of light where the sun had been minutes, or maybe hours ago. As he watched, and arc of gold flashed, almost blinding in its sudden brilliance. "Look!"

She looked up and he got to see her eyes widen with undisguised delight and relief, pupils shrinking to pinpricks at the sudden luminosity and she clutched at his arm. "Oh, it's come back!"

The sounds in the courtyard rose and from inside the building came a muffled cheer as the entire city let out a breath it had held since the light had faded. "See? I told you it would be all right." Eric tried to grin, or at the very least smirk with the conviction that he had been right all along, but couldn't quite pull the expression off with his usual aplomb.

Beatrice wrinkled her nose and scooted back until a respectable distance separated them once more. "What was that?"

"I have no idea," Eric shook his head and frowned. "Let me ask around, all right? I'll let you know if I find anything interesting." The administrator's words came back to him; it almost sounded like Erudite didn't know what had happened either, but that was impossible. It had to have been a misunderstanding by the person giving the announcement. It didn't matter. There was always an answer, it was just a question of looking in the right place.


	17. Battle in a Frozen Wasteland

**A/N: So this story, as of the last chapter, broke 5k hits and 80 reviews. That's... simply incredible, to me. No warnings today, just lots of fluff. Because you deserve it. 3**

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The weather turned to winter unseasonably early with snow falling the day after the Autumn Equinox. Eric listened with half an ear to the adult discussions worrying about the change and got on with his studies. The constant precipitation was annoying; it created a false sense of urgency. It was too soon to be anxious about the end of term tests; they were still several months away- the school calendar did not rely on the weather to know when the term ended. Still, it called to something irrational in his brain that would not be silenced.

He found Beatrice one particularly cold day in the storage space above the library struggling with the trapdoor leading up to the roof. She didn't turn away from where she balanced precariously on a stack of boxes, but banged the unfinished wood with her tiny fist again. "It's stuck." She announced as he stopped a safe distance away from her perch.

"Are you sure? Let me try." Eric set his bag on a nearby crate and waited for her to concede the tiny space on the stacked boxes to him. She gave it a few more attempts before scrambling down with just a trace of sulk. Eric took her place and prodded the icy wood around the entrance, pushed the lever and eventually was forced to admit that Beatrice's initial analysis had been correct. He hopped down and tried to brush the sawdust off his hands. "Whatever, it's too cold to be up there anyway. Let's see if we can find somewhere better." Without waiting for her input, he slung his bag back over his shoulder and marched off. The library was too crowded for his purposes, filled with students driven indoors as they were.

Beatrice kept pace as he slunk out of the library and turned down a corridor, away from the heavily trafficked hallways. She kept quiet, but it wasn't her fault that the weather was terrible and all his favorite spots were already occupied. Besides, it was a large building and he knew a few of its secrets. In the heart of the junior wing, the part dedicated to the really little kids, he found an empty room, furnished with a few rickety chairs in front of a wide glass window looking out on the snowy ground.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" Beatrice eyed the space cautiously.

Eric shrugged and shut the door behind him. "Feel free to keep looking if you want." The chairs were not heavy and he dragged one in front of the bright light coming in through the window and settled himself down.

"That's not what I meant," Beatrice protested and copied him, perching on the edge of a stool with her elbows on her knees and staring outwards. "I don't want us to get in trouble, is all."

"I don't think it's likely." It was an unfounded statement, but Eric was fairly confident that he could talk his way around any of the instructors who might accidentally stumble over them. With some small reluctance he pulled out his study things and spread them over the wide windowsill and tried to dredge up some interest in his math homework. It didn't take long for Beatrice to forsake her position on the stool, gently nudging his papers into a more condensed pile so she could perch on the bench beside them and look out the window, close enough for her breath to fog up the glass.

The small movements, not even proper fidgeting, danced in Eric's peripheral vision and continuously distracted him from the integrals in front of him. "Do you have to sit there?" He asked after she had... moved, there was no other word for it, and made him start over on the current problem for the third time in three minutes.

Beatrice cocked her head to the side and studied him, "No?" She seemed genuinely confused as to the source of his frustration, as though she had no idea just how distracting she was, and turned back to the window without moving from her seat. "Oh, look Eric, Dauntless dependents!"

Eric refused to look up, to let her distract him even more from his work than she was currently doing. "I've seen Dauntless kids before." He printed an answer to the second problem on his assignment, frowned at the result and erased it with heavy dissatisfaction.

Beatrice rolled onto her knees and pressed her palms against the cold glass to better gawk at whatever had captured her attention. "They look like they're having fun." A small, sad smile flicked over her mouth briefly, a private moment that Eric felt like he was intruding on by just existing in the same room as her. "Oh, goodness!" She scrambled off the ledge and ducked as something tapped against the window pane.

Well, he was only human, and it was only instinct that made him look up from his work as a second snowball spattered against the glass. Were they the targets of some infamous Dauntless prank, or just collateral damage? A short glance outside seemed to indicate the later, as the bulky black clad figures seemed overwhelmingly interested in forming projectiles out of the snow and launching them at any and everything, windows, each other, busses parked in the lot. He wasn't sure if fun was the word he would have chosen to describe it, it was chaos, unguided and two of the smaller kids had just stuffed what looked like several handfuls of snow down one of the taller kid's jacket and were being jammed into a snowbank in payback. "They're going to be soaking wet when they come back inside." He observed and forced his eyes back to his book, but unable to block out the raucous laughter coming from outside.

Beatrice nodded her agreement, "Cold, too," She added, but couldn't quite quash the yearning in her tone.

Several minutes of almost quiet contemplation allowed Eric to pencil in the proper answer to his problem and he set his pencil down, looking between Beatrice's face and the ridiculous scene outside. It seemed like he ought to do something about the want writ plain on her face, and well, it was a small sacrifice really in the grander scheme of things. He still had all of his Faction Activity time today to finish his work if he was efficient about it. "Come on," He returned his supplies to his satchel and stood, cracking his neck.

"Where are you going?" Beatrice gave him a quick glance over her shoulder before returning to the scene beyond the window.

"Outside," Eric wondered, for one worrying moment, what he'd do if she didn't get the hint. Probably try and scope out a different workspace, he decided, there was no point in going through with this particular bit of madness without Beatrice. "Let's go," He reiterated, with a little heavier emphasis.

She didn't follow his line of thought, he could see from the wrinkles of confusion in her forehead, but then again it was a fairly improbably course of action he was on. Still, she followed him again back out of the little empty room, down the quiet halls and out the side entrance, around the corner from where the Dauntless dependents were engaged in their sport.

Eric dropped his bag on a bare patch of cement by the room and trotted off the beaten down path to the fresh mounds of snow. He knew a little bit about the substance; it formed at 32 degrees Fahrenheit in a six pronged crystalline structure, it could be compacted into ice with sufficient heat and pressure, and you could use salt to prevent it from sticking to roads. It could also, apparently, be clumped into solid projectiles, if you didn't mind getting your hands cold. It stung his bare skin a little bit, but otherwise proved to be fairly agreeable to his intents and he packed it lightly behind his back before tossing it at Beatrice.

His aim was off, and it sailed over the crown of her bun. Beatrice's eyes went wide and she boggled at him, already scooping more snow to try again. "Eric! What are you doing?" She hissed, raising her arms to protect her face. "You're not being very nice."

"It was your idea," Eric smirked and threw again. His aim was good, but Beatrice ducked her head with a squeal, an undignified sound even for a girl of twelve, and again the projectile embedded itself in the snow behind her.

She placed her hands on her hips and stuck her nose in the air, decrying her innocence to the empty air, then squeaked again as he turned to pack another. "Was not!"

"Was too," Eric shot back, turning quickly and this time aiming low so when she ducked it still managed to catch her high on her chest. "Come on, you have to throw back or it's no fun."

Beatrice touched the faint white smear on her grey sweater, rubbing the snow that clung there between her fingers and giving him a terribly fierce scowl. "I'll show you fun," She vowed and gathered two handfuls of loose powder, crunching them together and lobbing it at Eric's face.

It was a pale shadow of the game played by the Dauntless kids and Eric twisted to the side at the slow, clumsy throw, but it still clipped his cheek, the chunk of snow breaking apart and bits sprinkling down his collar. It was very, very cold against his neck.

Beatrice dropped the snowball she was forming as a follow up, red-knuckled hands coming up to cover her mouth in her horror. "Eric, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to; are you okay?"

Adrenaline spiked and Eric shook his head at her with a grin that even felt evil. "Too late, you can't take it back now."

He threw two in quick succession and she took one to the shoulder and the other full on the cheek. It devolved quickly after that, handfuls of snow launched without any sort of finesse, forsaking aim for speed. Several lucky shots later, Beatrice slipped in her haste and sprawled, flat on her back, in the fluffy coating. Breathing heavily, Eric loomed over her, one last snowball clutched in fingers that had gone numb with cold several minutes ago. She didn't move, red faced and equally out of breath after the exertion. "I think you won."

"Of course I won," Eric tossed the snowball from hand to hand, looking down at the familiar face screwed up with anticipation. It was probably his best yet, almost perfectly spherical, icy smooth, and he set it down carefully on a ledge under one of the windows facing their antics, a monument to his victory. "Don't lie there too long, you'll get wet."

Beatrice lay there a moment longer, he wasn't sure if it was some latent contrarianism or just tiredness. "I think it's a little late for that," She strained her neck forward to look at her overlarge sweater with splotches darkened with moisture.

"Well lying there won't help," He knew what she was talking about, he could feel an unpleasant damp in his socks and the collar of his shirt that promised a rather uncomfortable afternoon. Still, it had been worth it, and he rubbed his hands against his pants and offered one to her.

"True," She sat up, mirroring his actions with her hands against the rough wool of her skirt. He didn't miss the careful calculation in her face before reaching up and grabbing his wrist, letting him pull her to her feet by one skinny arm. She let him go quite quickly, shaking out the snow trapped between layers of ugly grey cloth and mincing across the trampled ground.

His eyes tracked her as she braced herself against the red brick wall and one by one, removed her boots and shook out the snow trapped in there. It was a good idea, by his reckoning, the snow would melt inside and soak in even more, removing it outside might be less pleasant in the short term, but should pay off in comfort later in the day. He mimicked her actions and then, on a second's thought, checked his reflection in the window. His hair had deteriorated from its crisp comb down to half formed wet rats that flopped in all directions. He grimaced, trying to use his fingers to order it back to the way it ought to be.

"Do you need help?"

Eric froze and looked down at the guileless face staring up at him. "No," The reply was automatic, then on further consideration he amended, "Maybe. Does it look stupid?"

Beatrice shrugged and beckoned him to bend over, refusing to verbalize an answer to his query. Eric obliged, it had to be really bad if the modest Abnegation girl was offering to help him with his vanity. Or maybe that was just her default, whether she weighed an opinion or not. Her fingers were freezing where they brushed against his scalp, bringing order to the chaos. "Better?" She asked and stepped back out of his personal space, lacing her fingers behind her back.

A quick glance back in the reflective window surprised him; it was a passable facsimile of his ordinary style. "Yeah," He rubbed the back of his neck unthinkingly and flinched against the chill. "You're, you're really good at that for a…" He trailed off, the words he needed evading.

"For a Stiff?" Beatrice wrinkled her nose. "I have eyes, Eric." There was definitely a tone of reproach in her voice.

"I know that. Sorry," Eric retrieved his bag from where he had left it, hoping that the contents had stayed relatively dry. "Here, there's still a little time left, you should go towel off in the bathroom before your next class." Beatrice studied him a moment longer, then nodded and slipped back into the relative warmth of the school building.


	18. An Equal Exchange

**A/N: Merry Christmas (or Solstice or New Years), readers! Seasonally appropriate chapter for once, with a special thanks to murmelichen for the gift idea this time around. Please enjoy the holiday fluff.  
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Eric usually prided himself on the ingenuity of his plans, schemes and other experiments, but as the street he knew that ought to contain two Abnegation children remained vexingly empty, maybe it was time to re-evaluate the wisdom of this particular endeavor.

"This is stupid," Eric muttered to the snowy silence and tried to jam his hands deeper in the pockets of his wool coat. He could feel the wet and cold seeping into his shoes and knew the hospital would be a warmer, therefore preferential, waiting place than his current location. But of course he had to be the first to encounter Beatrice before she reached her destination for his plan to work at all. He shifted again, back starting to hurt under the weight of his knapsack, verging on giving up, when the long awaited crunch of footsteps started. The pain and discomforts receded and Eric ducked into the alley he was loitering besides, peering around the corner like some kind of uncommon criminal as two children in grey trudged through the snow

He watched them approach, little grey wraiths passing in a gentle snow, backs straight and heads down, a perfect tableau of quiet dignity. "Hey, Beatrice," He gambled and won.

"Eric?" Beatrice whipped her head towards him, pausing mid-step in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

It would be funny to tell her the truth, just to see what reaction it provoked, but he didn't know her companion, so Eric shrugged it off. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Beatrice absorbed the question stoically and glanced at her companion, "Will you please excuse me, Susan?" The other girl bobbed her head, eyebrows furrowed in consternation as Beatrice slipped across the street to Eric, bracing herself on the wall as she skidded to a stop before her friend. Re-balancing herself, Beatrice folded her arms over her chest and craned her neck to look up at him. "Can I help you with something?"

Eric grimaced at her tone; she sounded unhappy and that was all wrong. Why wasn't she happy to see him? He feigned nonchalance, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall beside him. "Stop by the staff room on the third floor when you're done volunteering?" It wasn't quite an order, which was good, but sounded like a half-assed request, which was bad.

"Why?" Beatrice glanced back at her friend and then up at him again.

"Just, please?" The word felt odd in his mouth. "I have something for you."

A tiny crease folded between Beatrice's eyebrows as she processed this information. "It will be several hours before I can get free."

"That's fine," Eric shrugged and returned his hands to his coat pockets. It was too cold for excessive posturing. "See you then." Stretching his legs he outdistanced the girls quickly, slipping through a side door at the hospital and negotiating his way up several flights of stairs. It took only a moment to flick the lights on and pin up a "Closed for Repairs" sign on the door. Then he dug his study materials out of his bag and waited.

* * *

Several hours later Eric's ears pricked at the sound of soft footsteps approaching and hesitating before the door and he took it as his cue to begin unloading the backpack's contents onto the short countertop available in the kitchenette.

The door cracked open and Beatrice eased her head in, scouring the room until her eyes alighted on Eric and she slipped in, latching it behind her. "I'm sorry about earlier."

"Hm?" Eric sorted through the items he had brought, flat metal sheet by the stove, measuring cylinder by the large bowl, dozen small packages stacked neatly on the other side.

Beatrice looked briefly cross, and she crossed the room, standing on the opposite side of the countertop, looking up at him. "I said I was sorry for being rude to you earlier."

Eric paused his activity to consider the statement. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No!" Beatrice shook her head firmly, "I wasn't expecting to see you until school started again. You surprised me."

"Is that all?" She hadn't looked surprised, in his experience with Beatrice and her occasional emotional outbursts, he would have best described it as displeased.

"Ah," She waffled, engaged in some internal debate. "Susan was with me, and our brothers were waiting for us. I was concerned that things might become awkward for everyone." Beatrice watched as Eric began opening the packages, revealing small heaps of powders and tins. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Eric rolled his eyes at her, "What was Saturday, Beatrice?"

Beatrice furrowed her brow, "Saturday? The twenty-fifth?"

"Yes, the twenty-fifth," Eric gave up on subtly, "Christmas." He snickered as her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open in a small 'o' as she made the connection.

"Christmas?" Her voice squeaked, almost endearingly. "You did this for me? For Christmas?" She clasped her hands over her mouth and rocked back on her heels.

"Well, yeah, it comes every year." Eric felt the muscles in his neck relax as the tension between them dissipated. "Now get over here and help."

Beatrice was at his elbow in an instant, eyes wide as he adjusted his tablet's position on a low shelf, safely out of the way of the materials on the counter. "What is it?"

A quick touch of a button activated the oven's heat. "Cookies, or they will be." Eric gestured at the heaps of powder, "Sift one scoop of the little white one and the brown into the bowl." He kept his own hands busy measuring out some butter and heating it in a small pan over the stove. Double checking the heating unit, he pushed the yellow lump of fat around and met Beatrice's eyes as she goggled at him, flipping the sugar into the sieve with efficient, capable motions. "What?"

"I thought cooking was below Erudite interests." She blushed and stared at the snowy mounts of sugar in the bowl.

Eric killed the heat on the stovetop and nudged Beatrice aside to add the liquid butter to the sugar. "This is baking, not cooking; it's a totally different thing. Mind doing the eggs?" He made a face at the ovides, "I always have to pick the bits of shell out afterwards. It's gross."

Stifling a giggle, Beatrice nodded and picked up an egg. "It's so easy, though! You just have to hit it on the edge like so…" With a firm tap, she split the egg neatly in half, twisting her fingers to separate the shell halves and drop the golden yolk into the mix.

"I understand the theory, thanks," Eric rolled his eyes and took refuge in sarcasm, less he say something stupid. "You cook a lot? Add the flour next."

Beatrice nodded and added the second egg, then the flour, sifting it over the whisk. "Abnegation kids start learning at five. We all take turns cooking family meals."

"Five years old?" Eric blinked in surprise. "Could you even see over the counter when you're five, shrimp? What happens if you burn it?"

"I am not a shrimp!" Beatrice narrowed her eyes at him in indignation. "I had a stool to stand on," She admitted with a little laugh and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, leaving a smear of flour behind. "Parents watch over the littlest kids to make sure they don't go astray and if it burns, well, you know. We're Abnegation. We eat it and give thanks. What does Erudite do?"

"Add chocolate chips," At Beatrice's uncomprehending stare, Eric switched stirring hands and pointed at the last wrapped package on the counter. "That's the next step, dummy."

"Oh! Sorry!" Beatrice stretched in front of him and snagged the small paper parcel, unfolding it carefully and sprinkling the morsels into the batter. "Do you need me to take a turn at that?"

His pride would never let him admit that her help would be a relief; Eric shook his head. "Nah, you can take the butter wrapper and grease the sheet." He considered her original question as they traded places. "Most of the adults are served meals at their jobs if they work late. Pre-made meals are also delivered to the residential dwellings twice weekly."

"So you never cook?" Her hands stilled for a moment at the concept and then continued her task.

Eric shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the topic. "Yeah, it takes away time that could be better spent on industry or education. It's more efficient that way."

"Ah," Beatrice set the sheet down and watched him stir a few moments longer. "Then how'd you get so good at it?"

"I'm good at everything, remember?" Eric teased her and set down the bowl of dough, rotating his tired shoulders. "I think that's good. Pass me the little spoon."

"Everything but cracking eggs?" Beatrice asked, giving him a sidelong look, cautious in her judgement of the joke's reception.

"I bare my soul to you about my egg cracking abilities and you turn it right back on me?" At her stricken expression Eric ruffled her hair. "Joking! That was a joke; it was funny." It was his turn to invade her personal space, leaning over her to grab the spoon he requested and scoop up a dab of cookie dough. "Here, try it."

Beatrice took the spoon and held it delicately before her. "Uncooked? Is that okay?"

"Yeah, it's better that way." Eric dug out a second spoon and began plopping small servings of cookie dough onto the greased tray.

"Then why cook any of it?" She took a suspicious lick of the very edge of the spoon.

Eric turned the fullness of his attention to the task at hand; the dough was very sticky and it was rude to stare. "Because that's how you're supposed to eat them, and the batter won't last very long unless it's cooked."

"Ah," Beatrice watched him work a moment longer. "What do I do next?"

The sheet was full of small tan lumps, Eric opened the oven and slid their creation in. "We clean up while they bake." It didn't take long to stick the bowl and cups in the small sink and throw away the bags and papers he had transported the materials in.

"Oh! I have something for you, too." Beatrice's head shot up from where she had bent over the sink and was scrubbing at the residual dough clinging to the sides of the mixing bowl.

Eric grinned at her sudden excitement. "I can wait until they're done." A heady aroma, sugar and vanilla, filled the room and he added, "Not like it'll be long now."

By the time they finished drying the utensils and packing everything away in his bag, the timer on his watch indicated that the waiting period was over. Beatrice handed him a dry towel and Eric carefully lifted the hot baking sheet out of the oven, balancing it on the stovetop. He admired the soft golden color and the tendrils of wafting steam, impatience warring with the concern for scorched fingers as Beatrice reappeared behind him.

"Oh, Eric, those are lovely." Her eyes shone as she held a small rough square of brown paper up to him. "This is for you."

The package weighed almost nothing, and Eric tore the wrapping off and held up the length of knitted wool, soft shades of blue and green, white and black, intermingling. "Wow," It was soft as fallen snow against his skin and he wrapped it around his neck, a little warm for indoors but that wasn't ever going to stop him. "This is really nice. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Beatrice flushed and looked at the tops of her shoes. "I kept running out of the colors. I hope that's okay?"

"It's really cool," Eric ran a finger along a thick black stripe and poked her bony shoulder lightly. "Way cooler than the gift you got me last year."

She blinked at him and batted his hand away. "I didn't get you anything- oh. You're teasing me!"

Chucking, Eric nodded and picked one of the cookies up, dropping it in her hands. "You bet I am. Merry Christmas, Beatrice."

The girl juggled the hot treat between her fingers before taking a cautious nibble. "Oh, this is very nice. Thank you!"

Taking his own treat, Eric let the contentment wash over him. Beatrice's opinion was dead on, they were very nice indeed.


End file.
